
LOUISE PLATT HAUCIC 



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THE GOLD TRAIL 

HOW TWO BOYS FOLLOWED IT IN ’49 



THE GOLD TRAIL 

How Two Boys Followed It in ’49 


By 

LOUISE PLATT HAUCK 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

HAROLD CUE 




BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 


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Copyright, 1929, 

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 

All Rights Reserved 


The Gold Trail 


c 


Printed in U. S. A. 


i\PR -8 !9?9 

©CIA 


6394 




To 

My Dear Nephew 

PRESCOTT PL A TT 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

“ I had him covered before he could drop 

it” (Page 166) . . . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Something struck against the tall crown 

of Chapman’s hat.40 

The next instant the flood of bodies 

swept past him.94 

“ It’s a pocket!” said Jerry, his eyes 

bulging.200 


7 







THE GOLD TRAIL 


CHAPTER ONE 

Rat-a-tat-tat ! 

The sixteen-year-old boy, cleaning his gun 
by the light of the fire, looked up hopefully at 
the sound of a loud knock on the sturdy oak 
door. In these exciting times, a visitor after 
nightfall was apt to mean trouble; and Jerry 
Copeland had a boy’s delight in thrills. 

Before he could unbar the door, his father, 
Squire Copeland, came out of an adjoining 
bedroom. 

“ Best find out who it is, son, before you 
open!” And before Jerry could obey, the 
Squire raised his voice in a question. “ What’s 
wanted? Name yourself, stranger, if you seek 
shelter here.” 

There was a deep chuckle from without. 
“It’s me, Squire—Reynolds! And it’s your 
company I want, not shelter.” 

9 



10 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


The Squire swung the door wide. “ Come 
in, man! The wind’s like a knife. Jerry, 
give the logs a stir.” 

The man who entered was a veritable giant, 
six feet, five inches tall, and broad propor¬ 
tionately. His homespun trousers disappeared 
into heavy boots, and his coat was of coonskin, 
as was the cap he now removed. 

“ Well, Sheriff! ” The Squire spoke testily. 
“ I take it there’s just one thing brings you 
out this time o’ night—the pesky emigrants 
again! ” 

Reynolds nodded, pulling his yarn mittens 
from his hands and running his fingers through 
his thick grey hair. “ Little dust-up out at 
camp. Couple of emigrants wantin’ to set up 
housekeepin’ for the winter in the lee of Joe’s 
stacks. Joe had one of his boys ride in to ask 
me to come out with a posse and evict ’em.” 
The big sheriff gave another chuckle. u We 
ain’t much on posses, you and me, eh, Squire? 
So fur, us two’s been sufficient posse for all 
emergencies.” 

“ Why can’t these emigrants keep their 
squabbles for daytime and not roust honest 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


11 


folks from their beds at midnight? Dinged 
nuisances, I say, the emigrants! ” 

Jerry spoke eagerly. “ Pa, it’s only a little 
after ten. And you know Editor Archer wrote 
a piece in the paper about how orderly the 
emigrants are, considering there are more’n 
five thousand of 'em camped outside o’ town.” 

“ Quite a mess of visitors for a trading-post 
numbering nine hundred souls, Squire! And, 
as the boy says, they’ve been pretty well- 
behaved on the whole. Since the killing of old 
man Morgan, we haven’t had much to com¬ 
plain of out at camp.” 

“Good reason why!” the Squire snorted. 
“ The town council made short work of the 
murderer. Just the same, I, for one, shall be 
glad when grass comes and they all get off on 
their wild-goose chase after gold.” 

“ There are right smart of a lot that don’t 
think as you do,” Reynolds said amiably. 
“ Most of our merchants are lining their 
pockets pretty well from the money-bags of 
our visitors.” 

Squire Copeland spoke with increased 
warmth. “And a shame and disgrace to the 


12 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


town it is, too! Running up prices to unheard- 
of heights because it’s the last place the poor 
creatures will find to buy necessaries.” As he 
talked, he had been struggling into a greatcoat 
of sheepskin, and now clapped a wide-brimmed 
hat on his head. “ Better be getting out 
there,” he said. “No telling what kind of a 
rumpus Barada and his uninvited guests have 
kicked up.” 

“ Can I come with you, Pa? ” Jerry asked. 
“ If there’s really trouble, you might be glad 
of my help.” He patted his gun suggestively. 

“ You leave that gun here, young fellow! ” 
The sheriff spoke not unkindly. “ Just one 
shot is all that’s needed to touch off that pow¬ 
der magazine out at camp. Come along, if 
you like, but come unarmed. I reckon me and 
your father can handle whatever we find out 
there.” 

“ I’ll get the horses! ” The boy bolted out 
the door before his father could forbid his ac¬ 
companying them. Visits between the camp 
and the town were not favored by the authori¬ 
ties. Tempers were brittle during these long 
winter weeks of waiting for the grass to come 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


13 


and, though in the main the emigrants were 
orderly and law-abiding, there was an element 
of lawlessness which gave the leaders a great 
deal of worry. 

Presently the three St. Joseph residents 
were trotting briskly along the road which led 
to the camp. Wagons and tents swung in a 
giant arc about the little town, its points meet¬ 
ing the river on the west, the swell of its arch 
stretching away into the forest. Many of the 
noble walnut-trees which were Missouri's glory 
had been sacrificed of late years to the grow¬ 
ing of hemp, and it was in the denuded hemp- 
fields that most of the tents had been pitched. 

The great emigrant train had been halted at 
the river by the approach of winter. There 
was an effective ferriage system, but after 
November it had not been used except by those 
reckless gold-seekers who elected to push on in 
the face of the weather’s perils. 

The tiny settlement at Great Salt Lake was 
the first stopping-place after St. Joseph was 
left behind, and it afforded scant accommoda¬ 
tion for man or beast. Before even that haven 
could be reached, there were miles of desert 


14 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


where no food was obtainable and where there 
was no protection from hostile bands of In¬ 
dians. Taking these facts into consideration, 
the leaders of the trains assembled on the out¬ 
skirts of the town decreed that there they 
should “ wait for grass,” that significant phrase 
which indicated food for the stock and safer 
passage for humans. 

“ I see the lights! ” Jerry exclaimed at last. 

“ Yes, the regulations call for fires at every 
two hundred yards,” Reynolds said. “ Dis¬ 
courages thieving and keeps the wolves at a 
safe distance. We’ll skirt camp and ride 
’round by Barada’s. No use waking every¬ 
body and letting them get wind of the trouble. 
Lucky, Joe’s fields are so far south of the 
camp.” 

Another ten minutes brought them to the 
dark stacks which were the precious hemp 
piled to await the winter’s breaking. A flar¬ 
ing fire and loud voices guided them to the 
scene of the trouble. 

About fifty feet away from one of the stacks, 
a knot of men were engaged in heated discus¬ 
sion. Two of these, the visitors recognized as 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


15 


Joe Barada and young Joe. The latter was 
shifting a shotgun from elbow to shoulder and 
back again as though waiting for a signal to 
put it to use. Three strangers stood about the 
fire in easy attitudes, while a fourth was pull¬ 
ing bedding from a wagon and spreading the 
coarse blankets on the ground. It was this 
man who was speaking when the sheriff and his 
companions rode up. 

“ It ain’t going to hurt your blamed hemp 
none for us to sleep under it, air hit? ” he asked 
truculently. “ We’ve told you one thousand 
times, more’r less, we won’t let no sparks from 
our fire blow in that direction. Now git home 
to yore own bed and thank yore lucky stars it 
ain’t out on the hard ground like this is.” 

“ Hard or not, it’s my ground! ” Barada re¬ 
torted. “ I reckon a man’s got some rights left 
agin you durned emigrants, though the Lord 
know r s they be mighty few. I’m a law-abidin’ 
citizen, I am, so I’m waiting for Sheriff and 
Squire to git out here to ’tend to your case. If 
it wa’n’t for that, I’d let my son here give you 
a taste o’ buckshot out of the business end of 
that there gun.” 


16 


THE GOLD TRAIL 

“ Lemme do it, anyhow, Pa, lemme do it, 
anyhow!” the boy begged. “Sheriff’s had 
time to git out here twict since we sent him 
word. We’ve spent enough time argyfyin’ 
with the blamed gold-seekers, sayin’ nothin’ at 
all about the smack lie give me side o’ the 
head.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of 
the emigrant who had spoken. “ Jes’ one liT 
dose out of Shottie here—jes’ one? ” 

“ Not one! ” It was the sheriff’s stern voice 
that spoke, and the men whirled in surprise. 
“ You put that gun down, young Joe, and let 
Squire and me handle this affair, it bein’ our 
legitimate and lawful business, so to speak. 
Barada, you tell your story first.” 

“ I’ll make it short and to the point,” the 
hemp-grower promised. “ I was bedding down 
my stock for the night when one of the hands 
come in and said there was a mess of emigrants 
in the fields. I come over, and sure enough 
here they was, lighting their fire, cool as you 
please. You know yourself, Squire, there ain’t 
been any rain to speak of lately, and a spark 
from that fire would make my crop go up in 
smoke in less time than it takes to tell it.” 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


17 


Squire Copeland nodded. He knew that in 
this hemp-growing region where no other crop 
was cultivated to supplement the rich yield of 
the profitable plant, the loss of the stacks would 
be ruinous. The sheriff, too, looked at the 
hemp and nodded thoughtfully. 

“ I explained the matter civil,” Barada con¬ 
tinued, “ and asked what was they doing out¬ 
side of camp bounds. That black-haired sass- 
box over there told me to get out of here—out 
of my own fields, mind you! With that I up 
and kicked his fire to pieces and young Joe 
started turning the horses’ heads about. Sass- 
box slapped young Joe up side o’ the jaw. I’d 
’a’ been justified in fillin’ him full of buckshot 
for that, but I contented myself with knocking 
him flat and sending word to you, remember¬ 
ing how council last week advised that we keep 
peace and harmony with the emigrants.” The 
virtuous tone in which he couched these senti¬ 
ments was ludicrously at variance with the 
rapidly swelling eye of the black-haired emi¬ 
grant. 

“You deserve credit for sticking so close 
to council’s advice, you do so,” the sheriff told 



18 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


him with some dryness. “Now you, Black- 
hair! What you got to say? ” 

“A whole lot,” answered the man so ad¬ 
dressed. “ Things have come to a pretty pass 
when a pore emigrant with no roof over his 
head can’t settle peaceable in a bare field. We 
wa’n’t hurtin’ nothin’, was we, George? We 
was allowin’ to be careful with our fires, wa’n’t 
we, Bill? We don’t aim to start trouble no- 
wheres, but yet we don’t aim to run from it if 
it comes seekin’ us. We got a right to make 
camp in a bare field, and you see we done it.” 
He gave the blanket he held a defiant shake, 
even while he backed away under the Squire’s 
steady gaze. 

“And now we’ll see you pack up again and 
git back to your own ground, the space that 
was allotted to you by your own train master,” 
Reynolds said quietly. “ We ain’t here to 
argue, Mister. We represent the law, and if 
necessary we can back our request with a posse. 
And let me tell you, my pleasant-dispositioned 
friend, a St. Joseph posse ain’t a gathering to 
be sneezed at. We ain’t stood off the Indians, 
to say nothing of wolves and other wild ani- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


19 


miles, without developing a little way of our 
own in handling trouble. If we come after 
you, you won’t mistake us for any reception 
committee come to offer you the freedom of 
the city—not by a long shot you won’t. More¬ 
over, you know as well as we do that your own 
train will support us in whatever we do. Did 
you have your wagon master’s permit to drive 
out of camp bounds like this ? ” 

“No wagon master’s got the say-so of me,” 
Black-hair growled. Nevertheless he began 
sullenly to throw the bedding back into the 
wagon and motioned his companion to repack 
the scattered cooking utensils. “ We’re a-goin’, 
’cause hit’s too cold to stay here jawin’ all night 
about it, but you can bet your sweet lives you’re 
goin’ to hear more about this afore you hear 
less. Hud Nolen’s not the man to lay down 
under tyranny. You needn’t think you town 
robbers are goin’ to strip the last cent off our 
hides for provisions and then chase us off land 
we got as much right to as you have, if it comes 
to that. It all belongs to the Indians.” 

“Tut, tut!” the big sheriff said gently. 
“Ain’t you never heard of a little bill of sale 


20 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


called the Platte Purchase? Squire here was 
one of the men that put his fist to that docu¬ 
ment by which right and entitlement this land 
became the property of the residents of Holt, 
Nodaway, Buchanan, and other counties. 
You’re standing on a piece of Buchanan right 
now, Mister Hud Nolen, if that’s your name, 
and a piece that belongs to a man that’s right 
choice of it. He’s some particular about who 
his visitors are. . . . Need any help get¬ 

ting your horses hitched? Or your goods 
packed up again? ” 

Nolen only gave a snarl in reply. Jerry 
Copeland with his dog, Blunderbuss, had edged 
as close to the fire as possible, deeply interested 
in the possibility of a fistic encounter. Nolen 
jerked the blankets from the ground and was 
folding them, walking toward the wagon as 
he did so. At that moment the spirit moved 
Blunderbuss (he hourly justified his name) 
to cross in front of the emigrant. There was 
a yelp from the dog, a profane exclamation 
from the man, and Nolen sprawled his length 
on the ground before them. Young Joe, the 
onlookers, and even Nolen’s mates burst into a 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


21 


loud guffaw. The elder Barada’s shrill cackle 
sounded above the rest. 

Nolen picked himself up in a white heat of 
rage. He strode toward Jerry with uplifted 
fist. 

“Mighty funny, wasn’t it?” he shouted. 
“ Take that, ye Missouri puke! ” 

Reynolds’ great arm shot out and arrested 
the blow which was aimed at the boy. 

“ None o’ that, now, none o’ that,” he 
drawled. “ The dog was just trying to git out 
o’ range o’ Jerry’s feet, and I reckon Jerry’s 
got to have some place to put ’em, seeing how 
sizable they are. It was unintentional, man,” 
he went on more seriously. “ Nobody’s going 
to bother you if you tend to your own busi¬ 
ness. What, still honing to punch somebody’s 
head? Gimme a hand here, Squire, and we’ll 
just truss up this young cockerel and take him 
back to camp.” 

Nolen’s hands were quickly tied and he was 
helped none too gently into the wagon, growl¬ 
ing curses and threats as he perforce sub¬ 
mitted. The horses were hitched, and the 
sheriff and the Squire rode on either side of 


22 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


the sullen driver. Barada and young Joe re¬ 
turned to their own house, and the deputies 
joined the cavalcade which took its way to the 
camp. 

Above the wagon of each train master 
floated the United States flag, a mark agreed 
upon by the emigrants to facilitate the location 
of authority. This flag had been lowered at 
sunset, but the Squire was well acquainted with 
the position of the Illinois headquarters. He 
roused the train master by hammering on the 
hub of the wagon wheel until a sleepy voice 
from within the wagon inquired: 

“ Who’s there, and what’s wanted? ” 

A few words of explanation and George 
Wright emerged from the canvas opening and 
listened to the brief account the visitors gave 
of their presence. Wright was in his butter¬ 
nut suit and yarn socks, his only preparation 
for bed having been the removal of his heavy 
cowhide boots. 

“ I allow we’re going to have a heap of 
trouble with that outfit before we get under 
way,” he commented. “ The others with him 
ain’t so bad, but that Hud Nolen is primed 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


23 


for trouble and lots of it. I’m thankful you 
got ’em back here without any heads being 
broke. We’ll put him in the guard tent till 
morning, and then I’ll have him up before the 
camp council. Mr. Sheriff, I’m mighty much 
obliged to you for tending to this matter with¬ 
out getting me out there. My wife burned 
her hand bad on a skillet handle to-day, and I 
wouldn’t like to leave her alone with the baby, 
suffering as she is.” 

The visitors offered sympathy and advice, 
and with a final word as to the recreant Nolen, 
rode off in the direction of the town, now 
darkened for its night’s rest. 

Jerry felt a secret disappointment that an 
affair which had promised to be so exciting had 
so tame an ending. If he had but known it, 
that night’s visit to the camp and his introduc¬ 
tion to Nolen were destined to have far- 
reaching consequences in the next two years of 
his life. 


CHAPTER TWO 


“ Quit your shovin’! ” 

“ Who’s a-shovin’ ? Git back on the line 

yourself! ” 

•/ 

“ You gimme any of your sass, young feller, 
and I’ll-” 

“ Look out for the Boston johnny, fellows! 
He might get some mud on his clothes and 
then Uncle’d spank! ” 

The Boston boy referred to was a slim young 
fellow whose clothes, though no less substantial 
than those of his mates, were worn with an air 
which betrayed a degree of refinement above 
theirs. Jerry observed him with interest. 

It was the day after the affair with Hud 
Nolen, and Jerry had ridden out to the camp 
to see if there were any further developments 
of that situation. Finding the camp attending 
peacefully to its business and Nolen nowhere 
in sight, Jerry had strolled out to a meadow 
where a group of the emigrants were pitching 
horseshoes, a discarded wagon-spoke as their 

21 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


25 


stake. It was a mild day in late February, and 
the men, always alert to vary the monotony of 
camp life, had perfected their aim by more 
than an hour’s sport when Jerry arrived. 

Almost at once he had recognized Nolen 
among the players; and that the recognition 
was mutual, Nolen’s immediate change in de¬ 
meanor attested. He began to bluster; to 
“show off” for Jerry’s benefit; to threaten 
what he would do to those who incurred his dis¬ 
pleasure. Sharp little situations arose among 
the players, and Jerry noticed at once that the 
boy whom Nolen called “ the Boston johnny ” 
was the object of his truculent attentions. 

Matters reached a crisis when Nolen put out 
a foot and tripped the boy, sending him face 
down into the mud. Instantly he was on his 
feet and had launched a blow so swiftly and 
surely at Nolen’s jaw that the bully staggered 
and fell back. At once the field was in an 
uproar. 

“ Good for you, Jack Chapman! Bust his 
ugly face for him! ” 

“ Hey, Nolen! Goin’ to take that offen a 
kid?” 


26 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“ Stand back, fellows, and let ’em fight 
fair!” 

Nolen, his eyes spariding angrily under 
these taunts, raised a formidable pair of fists 
and rushed at the boy who was called Chap¬ 
man. Jack jerked his head coolly aside to 
avoid the blows and drove a neat one of his 
own at Nolen’s unprotected face. This time 
it drew blood from the older combatant’s 
nose. 

Half blind with rage, Nolen now attacked 
in deadly earnest, and Jerry watched with ex¬ 
cited admiration the clever footwork of young 
Chapman. However quickly and forcibly 
Nolen struck out, the boy’s face seemed never 
to be there. He swung his head to the left and 
right, ducked, dodged, evaded, and never lost 
a chance to send an effective fist of his own to 
an easily-found target. For all his superior 
size and age, Nolen was decidedly getting the 
worse of it when Jerry’s quick eye saw the 
man’s hand jerk back to his hip-pocket. 

Jerry Copeland had not lived in a frontier 
town where danger lurked among whites and 
Indians alike without knowing the significance 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


27 


of that gesture. With one sweep of his long 
arms, he scattered the boys who pressed be¬ 
tween him and the fighters. His fingers closed 
on Nolen’s just as the ugly revolver came into 
sight; closed with such strength that Nolen 
gave a yelp of pain. 

“ You sneak! ” Jerry said between his teeth. 
“ Can’t you even fight fair? ” He took the 
gun from the other’s hold and tossed it con¬ 
temptuously away. Then he gave Nolen’s 
cheek a resounding smack with his open hand. 
“ Now go ahead and take your licking from 
this chap, and then you and I’ll have a little 
something to settle.” 

But it appeared Nolen had had enough. 
His eyes were watering from the sharp slap 
Jerry had dealt him; his nose was bleeding 
profusely from Chapman’s blow. He mut¬ 
tered incoherent threats and retreated, holding 

a dirtv blue handkerchief to his face. 

•/ 

Chapman took out his own handkerchief, a 
bright red one, and immaculately clean, and 
wiped his hands before offering his right to 
Jerry in a cordial shake. 

“ Thanks,” he said briefly. “ I wasn’t ex- 


28 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


pecting him to pull a gun on me. John Chap¬ 
man’s my name.” 

“ Mine’s Jerry Copeland.” 

“ With the train? ” 

“ No,” said Jerry dolefully. “ I only wish 
I were! ” 

They had withdrawn a little from the group 
and now began to walk briskly toward camp. 

“ Folks don’t want you to go? ” 

“ That’s it. Father’s afraid I might be up 
till nine o’clock some night or hear some 
wicked man say ‘ doggone.’ ” He spoke with 
youthful impatience of maturity’s caution. 

“ Tough,” said the other sympathetically. 
“ Still, it’s nice to have some one to care like 
that. I’ve only my uncle, and I haven’t known 
him long.” 

“No father or mother? ” 

“No. They died when I was a little tike. 
I’ve been in school ever since. This uncle I’m 
with and his sister, my aunt, are all that’s left 
of the family. She lives in England; married 
a good-for-nothing who wanted her money, my 
uncle says,” he concluded with the frankness of 
seventeen. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


29 


“ Is your uncle rich, too? ” 

“ Not very. The money was mostly left to 

my aunt. Uncle Edward’s got plenty, though. 

That’s not why he’s going out to California.” 

Jerry stopped short and stared at the other, 

thunderstruck. “You mean he’s not going to 

hunt for gold after he gets there? ” 

Jack shook his head. “ He’s a lawyer. He’s 

•/ 

going to open up a law office out there.” He 
lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. 
“ He’s been disappointed in love. I don’t 
know just how, hut the lady he was going to 
marry went and married some one else. It 
seems like people can’t stand it to stay in the 
same place where a thing like that happens. 
Uncle Edward said he had to get away from 
Boston as far as possible. So he took me out 
of school and we joined the emigrants. Hard 
on Uncle Edward to have his girl treat him 
like that, but mighty lucky for me,” he finished. 
“ You re going to dig gold, aren’t you? ” 

“ You bet! ” said the Boston boy succinctly. 
They walked on a little way in silence, J erry 
kicking morosely at the clods of wet dirt in the 
meadow. 


30 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


44 I’d give my eye-teeth to be going when the 
train moves in the spring! The worst of it is 
my father was an emigrant himself. He and 
Mother came here twenty years ago, from 
Kentucky. Came in a covered wagon and 
brought horses and mules and slaves along 
with ’em. Mother was only seventeen, just a 
year older than I am, and Pa was twenty. 
And there wasn’t a thing here then but Squire 
Robidoux’s trading-post and a mill and a 
blacksmith shop. Lots of Indians, too, and 
buffalo and bears right where the town is now. 
You’d think that’d give Pa some sympathy 
with my wanting to go, wouldn’t you? ” 

44 1 guess it’s because he remembers how hard 
it was for them that he doesn’t want you to go 
through it,” the other returned wisely. 

“ Shucks! I’m as big as he is now and 
strong as an ox. Look there! ” He bared a 
sinewy arm and clenched his fist, making the 
muscles ripple under the smooth skin. 44 1 can 
throw any of the Indian bucks, wrestling, and 
that’s something to be able to do, I can tell 
you! They’re slippery as eels, with all the 
paint and oil they use. Say! ” He spoke as 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


31 


though struck with a new and valuable 
thought. “ You come home with me this after¬ 
noon and have supper with us—Mammy Celia 
makes the best pone and beat’ biscuit in Mis¬ 
souri—and you sort of talk up my going with 
the train in the spring. Kind of dwell on how 
safe your uncle thinks it is—he must think so, 
or he wouldn’t be taking you, would he? and 
what a lot of gold you expect to find, and 
things like that. You get the idea? ” 

Young Chapman appeared a bit doubtful. 
“ I don’t believe they’d take much stock in 
what a boy of my age might say. I’ll tell you 
a better scheme. I’ll ask Uncle Edward to 
see your father—he’s got some business with 
him anyway, if he’s Squire Copeland? ” Re¬ 
ceiving the other’s assent, he went on: “ Uncle 
Edward has a lot of theories about boys being 
thrown on their own resources and strengthen¬ 
ing their characters by responsibility. That’s 
the reason he’s taking me on this journey 
with him.” 

“ Get him to talk to Pa like that,” Jerry 
said eagerly. “ Say, you come and have sup¬ 
per with me, anyway, and let the folks see that 


32 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


there are different kinds of emigrants from fel¬ 
lows like that Nolen.” 

Young Chapman drew himself up. “ Look 
here, Copeland, you’ve evidently got the wrong 
idea about emigrants. The way you use that 
term makes me think you take us for tramps. 
I’d like you to know that some of the finest 
folks in the East are in this camp. Pioneer 
blood is brave, and it’s usually progressive. 
I’ll come to supper with you, thanks, and I’ll 
ask Uncle Edward to look up your father to¬ 
morrow. Wouldn’t it be fun if he let you join 
our train? ” 

So they planned, not knowing that, at the 
very moment of their boyish conference, a mes¬ 
senger was riding along the Weston road, 
bringing a letter which would give Jerry Cope¬ 
land his heart’s desire. 


CHAPTER THREE 


It had come a long way, that letter; by slow 
stages from England and to New York, across 
half the continent to St. Louis by train, and 
then by stage-coach to Weston. Last of all, it 
was brought by a mail-rider on horseback to 
St. Joseph, and finally reached Edward Chap¬ 
man at the camp. 

As it happened, Squire Copeland had made 
Chapman’s acquaintance before Jerry and 
Jack laid their plans to bring the two together. 
The elder Chapman had ridden into the village 
and inquired for a lawyer. Having been di¬ 
rected to Squire Copeland, he requested a pri¬ 
vate interview. 

“ I want to leave a letter and a package with 
you,” he said, after he had given a brief account 
of his affairs. “ My nephew is all I have in 
the world, except my sister who is married to a 
scoundrel in England. He thought he’d get 
his hands on Constance’s money, but it is held 
in trust for her. In the event of her death, it 

33 


34 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


comes to me, and if I die, to Jack. The boy is 
full of plans to make a fortune for himself out 
at the gold fields, but I don’t want to leave his 
future so uncertainly protected. This is the 
last outpost of civilization. I’m going to 
entrust to your care this package of bills—there 
are five thousand dollars there, all that I can 
spare from our present venture—and a letter. 
I shall tell Jack that if anything happens to 
me in San Francisco—and I understand that 
lawyers in that lawless place lead perilous lives 
—he is to return to St. Joseph, and you will 
turn over both money and letter to him. I 
should like to have him stay here, if you can 
persuade him. I believe this village has a great 
future, on the very border, as it is, of a new 
country.” 

Squire Copeland beamed at his visitor. 
Praise of his beloved town not only pleased him, 
but convinced him of the speaker’s perspicac¬ 
ity. He promised to keep a fatherly eye on 
Jack, in the event of his return to Missouri. 

“ But if—as I sincerely hope—you establish 
yourself fortunately in California—what shall 
I do with the packet? ” 




THE GOLD TRAIL 


35 


“ I will send for it,” Chapman answered. 
The two men shook hands on the bargain. 

A few days later the letter came, and Ed¬ 
ward Chapman stopped only long enough to 
saddle his horse before riding into the village 
to seek the Squire. His face was drawn with 
sorrow and he poured out his story in jerky 
words. 

“A letter from my sister in England,” he 
said. “ She is very ill—not expected to live. 
Her rascally husband has left her, and she begs 
me to come at once. God knows if I shall be 
too late! But I’m going at once. Squire 
Copeland, I haven’t time to dispose of my 
California outfit, or to make arrangements for 
Jack. Would you—would it be asking too 
much to request you to undertake this for me? 
The outfit ought to be easily sold. With the 
proceeds, the boy can return to Boston and re¬ 
enter his old school. I don’t like the arrange¬ 
ment, but it’s the best I can do under the cir¬ 
cumstances.” 

The Squire grew thoughtful. “ Chapman, 
I’ve another plan to propose. Your nephew 
took supper with us last night. Perhaps he 


36 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


told you. A fine, manly young fellow I 
thought him. Now my Jerry is all agog to 
join the gold-seekers in the spring. His 
mother and I have opposed it. We think he 
is too young. But—to tell you the truth, 
Chapman, I’m fearful the boy may run off and 
join the train if we withhold our consent.” He 
cleared his throat. “ I—er—did something 
like that when I was his age, and I reckon it’s 
in the blood. If Jerry is to go, I want him 
to go properly prepared and not with a sack 
of beans and a side of bacon in his saddle-bags, 
as the young heedless is likely to do. What 
say your boy and mine join forces; take your 
outfit, with Jerry paying for his share, and 
start out together with the train? ” 

Chapman looked thoroughly astonished. 
“ Those two boys alone, Squire? ” 

“ You can hardly call it being alone in a 
train of five thousand people.” The Squire’s 
tone was dry. “ It’s because I’m afraid Jerry 
is likely to dash off with a smaller train that 
I’m considering this. The only possible safety 
in crossing the plains lies in the number of the 
emigrants. The Indians will hesitate to attack 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


37 


a company of this size. Man, it’s my only son 
I’m talking of! ” he said with emotion. “ If 
I’m considering it safe for him, surely you can 
do as much for your nephew.” 

Chapman stood with one foot on the horse¬ 
block in front of the Copeland house. He 
switched his boot with his riding whip, thought¬ 
fully. 

“ The lads are out at camp now. Jack is 
showing your boy the outfit. Why not ride 
out and see what they have to say about the 
matter? ” 

It was a foregone conclusion what the boys 
would say, the Squire thought as he trotted 
along beside his companion. And so it proved. 
Jerry, at the first hint of the glorious plan, let 
out a whoop that brought several excited emi¬ 
grants running, certain the camp was being 
attacked by Indians. He seized his father’s 
hand and wrung it excitedly. 

* “ Pa, you’re a trump! To think this was 
your own idea, when I’ve been planning and 
scheming-” He did not finish the sen¬ 

tence, but hung his head abashedly. 

“ I reckon I have a pretty good idea what 



38 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


your plans and schemes were,” his father said. 
“You young folks never realize that your 
elders were once young, too. I haven’t for¬ 
gotten my own itch for excitement when I was 
your age.” 

Jack Chapman was no less pleased with the 
plan. He had taken a hearty liking to Jerry 
Copeland, and the prospect of having him, in¬ 
stead of his preoccupied uncle, as a companion 
in this glorious adventure made his eyes sparkle 
and the color come into his cheeks. 

It was arranged that Jack was to take up 
his abode in the Copeland house until spring. 
Jerry would have preferred to take the elder 
Chapman’s place in camp instead, but both 
boys thought it the part of wisdom to yield 
gracefully to the wishes of their elders in this 
respect. 

“ After all, a bed under you and a roof over 

•4 

you during these winter storms are not to be 
despised,” Jack remarked. 

So it was that the Chapman outfit was stored 
in the Squire’s house, the stock sheltered in the 
Copeland stables until spring should come. 
Mrs. Copeland was glad of the opportunity to 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


39 


become acquainted with the boy who was to be 
her son’s companion for so many months to 
come, and she and Mammy Celia began at once 
to prepare the clothing Jerry would need for 
the overland journey. 

Edward Chapman left St. Joseph the day 
after his sister’s letter came, but not before he 
had an adventure which gave his hosts some¬ 
thing to talk about for many a day to come, 
and greatly excited the boys. 

It happened in this way. The camp regula¬ 
tions required the registration of the names of 
those intending to make the journey. In so 
large a company as this, it was impossible to 
take personal account of the members. In 
crossing the plains, fording rivers, passing 
through narrow mountain roads, riders might 
become separated from the train, and wagons 
encounter many a mishap. The leaders had 
decided upon a nightly roll-call of each com¬ 
pany so that any who were missing would not 
be more than a day’s journey behind. At the 
slow rate of progress made by the wagons, out¬ 
riders could easily go back to seek the lost. It 
was a wise plan, and one that was to prove the 


40 THE GOLD TRAIL 

salvation of more than one venturesome emi¬ 
grant or unfortunate outfit. 

Edward Chapman, on the evening before his 
departure, went to headquarters to announce 
the change of travelers in his wagon. As he 
entered the train master’s tent he noticed a 
man, whom the Squire later recognized by his 
description as Hud Nolen, lounging at the 
entrance. Chapman remembered afterwards 
that his voice was clearly audible to any one 
directly outside the canvas walls. 

The change made, Chapman strode away, 
intent upon making his last arrangements and 
riding in to St. Joseph where he was to spend 
the night at the Copelands’. 

It was nearly nine o’clock when he turned 
his horse’s head in the direction of the town, 
and pitch-dark. A storm was rising in the 
northwest and the sky was overcast. Chap¬ 
man, jogging along at a brisk pace, his 
thoughts busy with the future, failed to see a 
figure which rose up from behind some bushes 
at the side of the road. 

There was a roar, a spurt of flame, and 
something struck against the tall crown of 



Something struck against the crown of Chapman’s hat 

Page 40 

































THE GOLD TRAIL 


41 


Chapman’s hat. Instantly his own gun was in 
his hand and he sent a shot in the direction of 
his assailant. There was a crashing of under¬ 
brush, the sound of swift feet running; then 
silence. 

Chapman sat for a moment debating 
whether he should attempt to follow the man 
into the dense thicket of pawpaw-trees and 
hazel-bushes, or ride on; then decided on the 
latter course, in view of the lateness of the hour 
and the improbability of finding the miscreant. 
He touched his horse lightly with his spur and 
galloped forward. They had gone but a quar¬ 
ter of a mile when Chapman’s mount stopped 
with a suddenness which almost unseated his 
rider. 

“What’s the matter, old boy? A tree 
down? ” 

He dismounted and went forward to recon- 
noiter. Prince was a sagacious animal that had 
carried his rider through more than one per¬ 
ilous adventure. When he planted his four 
feet in that decided manner it meant danger 
ahead, Chapman knew. 

The storm was coming nearer. Thunder— 


42 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


the unseasonable February thunder which was 
well known to dwellers along the Missouri— 
rolled slowly out of the west, and lightning 
was beginning to dart through the heavy 
clouds. It was during one of these flashes that 
Chapman caught sight of a heavy grape-vine 
which had been stretched across the road, its 
ends securely fastened to the trees on either 
side. 

“A neck trap, eh? ” Chapman whipped out 
his knife and severed the tough vine. He 
waited for the next flash to examine the ground 
under the trees. Heavy bootmarks were 
visible, but these offered no clue to the identitv 
of the man who had put up the obstruction. 
He crossed the road and examined the other 
end of the vine. Blackberry-bushes grew 
thickly here, and a blinding glare of light from 
the heavens showed Chapman a tiny tag of 
cloth caught on a briar. 

“ Now, Prince, old fellow, we’ve something 
to go on,” he said as he remounted. “ I’ll just 
pass this bit of dry goods on to the Squire and 
ask him to see if any of my camp friends ap¬ 
pear to stand in need of the services of a 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


43 


needle. Looks like the fellow wanted to make 
sure of me: first a shot from ambush, and in 
case that failed, a good chance of pitching 
head-forward and breaking my neck. It’s only 
thanks to you, Prince, that I didn’t.” 

He reached the Copeland home just as the 
storm broke. The boys, of course, were im¬ 
mensely excited at the tale of his adventures. 
The Squire fingered the bit of goods doubt¬ 
fully. 

“ Homespun, walnut dyed,” he pronounced. 
“ I reckon there are fifteen hundred just like 
it at camp. We haven’t much of a clew in 
this.” 

“ How about finding the shirt this is miss¬ 
ing from? ” 

* , , 

“Among five thousand emigrants?” The 

Squire smiled. “ The jwoverbial needle in a 
haystack would be about as easy to find. A 
simpler way to get at it is to decide what per¬ 
son or persons would have an interest in your 
death? Have you any enemies among your 
train mates? ” 

Chapman shook his head. “ I don’t think 
so. I’ve no reason to have. My relations with 


44 THE GOLD TRAIL 

my fellow travelers have been of the pleas¬ 
antest.” 

“ Then I should say,” the Squire pro¬ 
nounced, “ that the bullet and the neck trap 
were intended for some one else. You blun¬ 
dered into it prematurely.” 

“ Very likely.” Chapman dismissed the sub¬ 
ject with a nod. Dangers and narrow escapes 
interested him very little just now in the more 
absorbing interest of getting back to Boston 
as quickly as possible. 

After they had gone to bed, the boys dis¬ 
cussed the incident in whispers. 

“ That business sound like anybody special 
to you, Jack? ” asked Jerry. 

“ Hud Nolen!” 

“ Yes. It did to me, too. Did you tell your 
uncle about our little dust-up with Nolen on 
the horseshoe field?” 

“No,” said Jack. “I didn’t think there 
was any use in worrying him.” 

Jerry grinned at this thoughtful considera¬ 
tion on Jack’s part. 

“ It’s pretty well known at the camp about 
our joining forces,” he said. “ Knowing that 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


45 


you are to stay here with me until time to start, 
mightn’t it be reasonable to think it was you 
on the road from camp this evening? ” 

Jack pondered this for a moment. “ Jerry, 
I believe you’re right! I guess Nolen was try¬ 
ing to finish up that little job you interrupted 
the other day. Shall we tell Uncle Edward 
about it in the morning? ” 

“And make Pa forbid our going West be¬ 
cause of Nolen? Not much! ” said Jerry em¬ 
phatically. 


CHAPTER FOUR 


“ Hurrup ! Hurrup! ” 

“ Ease her down, Jim! The back wheels are 
slipping.” 

“ Look out for that steer’s horns! ” 

“ See you in Californy! ” 

“ California or bust! ” 

“ Ho, ho, ho! And away we go, 

Digging up gold on the Sacramen — TOE! ” 

“ Hurrup! Hurrup! ” 

The bright April morning resounded with 
cries from the emigrants who were driving 
their wagons down the steep slope to the ferry. 
A scene of indescribable confusion prevailed. 
Horsemen dashed here and there, directing the 
men who drove the oxen and cattle. Women 
peered fearfully out from the covers of the 
wagon at the terrifying stretch of the river be¬ 
fore them. Tow-headed children shrieked 
with joyous excitement. Dogs barked, chickens 
in crates at the back of wagons squawked, and 
above all the other noises came the constant 

46 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


47 


“ Hurrup! Hurrup! ” of the wagon masters 
to the pulling horses. 

On the banks stood groups of St. Joseph 
people watching their guests’ departure. Many 
of these same guests carried quantities of St. 
Joseph merchandise purchased at exorbitant 
rates, and they took their leave with no expres¬ 
sions of gratitude for their winter’s entertain¬ 
ment. Some of the trains had left behind their 
loveliest girls, and others had lost young men 
who had fallen victims to the charms of vil¬ 
lage beauties. Some who, with high hopes, had 
come thus far turned back at the river, leav¬ 
ing behind a grave in which lay the husband 
and father or wife and mother who had not 
survived the winter’s severity. 

To supply these vacancies, many stalwart 
Missouri youths had joined the train, and their 
families stood, half proud, half shaken with 
fear for their safety, looking on at the train’s 
departure. 

It would take days, perhaps weeks to get all 
the wagons across. To settle the question of 
precedence in ferriage, the names of different 
companies had been written on slips of paper 


IS 


TIIE GOLD TRAIL 


and dropped into a tall beaver hat two days 
before the exodus began. These slips were 
taken out by the small daughter of one of the 
emigrants and read aloud by the leaders. In 
this way the companies were kept together and 
an orderly procession insured. 

Jerry and Jack, to their intense delight, were 

among the first to entrain. Mrs. Copeland 

stood on the bank waving her handkerchief in 

their direction. The distance was too great for 

the bo vs to see the tears which welled to her 
% 

eyes and were wiped bravely away before they 
fell. 

The Squire was on the wharf, waiting to 
give his son a last hand-clasp. He had em¬ 
ployed the last days before departure in giv¬ 
ing the boys much good advice which, it is to 
be feared, did not receive the absorbed atten¬ 
tion it deserved. Much of it was to come back 
to their minds later, however, and stand them 
in good stead in a crisis. 

“ Hurrup!” 

The train master signaled impatiently to 
Jerry, who gathered up the reins and urged 
the mules forward. Jack rode a fine saddle- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


horse, the gift of his undLe, and Jft~rry'± own 
Rex was tied behind the wagon where he 
snorted disgustedly from time to time a: me 
slow progress of the plodding moles. Jem 
bent down from his high see: and took ms 
father's hand in his warm yclasp. There 
was a muttered “ God bless toll hey! “ firm 
the older man. an inarticulate wamcr from 
Jerry. The wagon creme r d: we he si zee. 
jerked on to ehe ferry with he mnks —Le¬ 
ered with terror a: he rashaca water. Sqehre 
Robidoux rapped out a Freni espkhre a: has 
helpers, and he ferry began ns sin coarse 
across me wide river. 

Men and women on he Lank cheered Lasny 
Chiidren leaped up and d:m and liked y.aw¬ 
ing messages. A few In f an vV hah toargd 
down to he river hank to see hies w—asom if 
their own territory granted disapproval The 
space between he ferry ana he host n dared 
and widened, and presently he Kansas hank 
was close a: hand. 

Thev were of: to the mid deids! Jem 
actually hugged hintsedf in a trarspar: cf de¬ 
light. 

*v_ 









50 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


As they lumber slowly along on their first 
day’s journey across the low hills of Kansas, 
or, as it was then known, Nebraska Territory, 
let us look under the cover of their wagon and 
see what the young emigrants have provided 
for the four months’ journey. 

To begin with, their wagon is drawn by 
mules, less susceptible to disease than horses, 
having greater powers of endurance, and of 
more value in the mines, should they finally 
reach there. Under the wagon swing a water 
bucket and a tar pail. These are their food 
stores: 

6 cwt. flour 

1 bushel navy beans 

2 bushels corn meal 
1 cwt. salt pork 

4 cwt. bacon 
1 cwt. sugar (brown) 

25 lbs. rice 

50 lbs. coffee (whole berries, unroasted) 

1 booc hardtack 
1 bag salt 
Spices , medicines 


To this, Mrs. Copeland had added such 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


51 


cooked food as would keep for some time with¬ 
out spoiling: a large baked ham, several fruit 
cakes, and some preserved fruits in stone jars. 
There was also a large box of dried apples to 
prevent the dreaded scurvy. And—most pre¬ 
cious of all to boyish palates—a huge box of 
rock candy, the gift of St. Joseph’s celebrated 
candy-maker who, by the way, was the first to 
introduce the fashionable “ French creams ” in 
the Middle West. His customers never tired 
of speculating how the delicious soft centers 
became enclosed in their parti-colored shells. 

They carried a substantial tent, to be used 
only when the train made a halt of several 
days. For a single night’s stop, they would 
sleep on the ground beneath the wagon or, in 
an emergency, in the wagon itself. There were 
an extra set of harness for the mules, axes, a 
sheet-iron stove, a supply of nuts, bolts, and 
screws, bedding, a kettle, and a long-handled 
frying-pan, with the inevitable coffee-pot and 
a small mill in which to grind the berries. 

Each boy had a pair of Colt revolvers and a 
shotgun, with a generous supply of ammuni¬ 
tion. Jerry had a heavy belt of buffalo hide 


52 THE GOLD TRAIL 

buckled about his waist and carried his Colt 
in a buckskin holster. Jack had a long-bladed 
Bowie knife in a buckskin sheath. Both boys 
wore woolen shirts and jeans overalls, wide 
hats, and red handkerchiefs knotted about their 
necks. 

Last, but not least in their estimation, was 
their “ mining outfit.” This consisted of four 
picks, two shovels, four gold pans, and a 
“ cradle,” which was nothing more than an 
oblong box, open at one end, and made to 
rattle like a winnowing machine by shaking. 

In October of the year before, a letter from 
the gold fields had appeared in the St. Joseph 
paper, giving valuable information to the emi¬ 
grants. 

“An immense bed of gold, one hundred 
miles in extent,” said the article, “ has been 
discovered in California, on American Fork 
and Feather Rivers, tributaries of the Sacra¬ 
mento and Monterey. Mr. Colton, the Alcalde 
of Monterey, states that the gold is found in 
the sands resembling squirrel-shot flattened 
out. Some grains weigh one ounce each. It is 
got by washing out the sand in any vessel, from 
a tea-saucer to a warming-pan. A single per- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


53 


son can gather an ounce or two a day; some 
even a hundred dollars’ worth. . . . Mr. 

Colton says, ‘ One man who resides next door 
to me gathered five hundred dollars’ worth 
in six days. He has a lump which weighs over 
one ounce. A trough such as you feed pigs in 
will bring in the gold region fifty dollars. Put 
a piece of sheet iron punched with holes in it 
and it will bring a hundred. My friend, J. R., 
paid sixteen dollars for a little basket, and his 
companion twenty dollars for a teapot, all to 
wash gold in.’ ” 

Jerry and Jack had no idea of arriving at 
the gold fields without adequate utensils with 
which to gather the golden harvest. 

Beyond two sacks of oats, the stock must de¬ 
pend on the grazing to be found along the trail 
and the grass which their drivers would cut 
and dry to be used when they were crossing the 
desert. 

Jerry had set his heart on taking his dog, 
Blunderbuss, along, but had been dissuaded 
by his father. 

“ There’ll be times, from all I hear, when 
you’ll be hard put to it to find water for your 
own needs. Every extra mouth will be a bur¬ 
den to the train then.” 


54 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


So Blunderbuss was tied in the stable, from 
which his mournful protests could be heard 
even above the noise of the train’s departure 
that morning. 

“ Hurrup! Hurrup! ” yelled the leaders as 
the wagons trundled over the grassy prairie, 
toward the end of the day. 

“ This is the life, Jack! ” Jerry cried, jubi¬ 
lantly. “ We’re off to gold and glory at last! ” 

Jack grinned at this speech. All about them 
they heard the rude language of the plains, dif¬ 
ficult not to imitate, at least to some extent. 
Jerry who had never been farther away from 
his home than an infrequent trip to Weston, 
was almost crazy with delight. He regarded 
the whole expedition as a sort of glorified pic¬ 
nic, and soon exchanged his wagon seat for 
Rex’s back, that he might race back and forth, 
exchanging hilarious greetings with the boys 
behind. 

Jack was content to drive the mules. His 
spirits were not so high. It made him a little 
sad to think that he had nobody to bid him 
Godspeed but the Copelands; that nobody 
would be waiting to rejoice over his success or 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


55 


mourn over his failure at the gold fields. But, 
after a time, the soft spring breeze which car¬ 
ried the pungent scent of new willows, the 
warm sunshine, and the beauty of the rolling 
country exhilarated him and he joined in the 
songs which, beginning at the wagon of one 
train, w T ould be carried along for miles down 
the line. 

Suddenly he stiffened on the high wagon 
seat. 

“ Look, Jack! ” he called excitedly. “ Here 
come some Indians! Do you suppose they are 
hostile? ” 

Jack turned his head toward the advancing 
band. 

“ No,” he laughed. “ Sac-and-Fox, riding 
out to swap arrow-cases and bows and moc¬ 
casins. They’ll follow us until we make camp, 
and then watch ’em! If they were Sioux, now, 
that would be a different tale! ” 

Jack watched the dusky visitors with deep 
interest. They rode with the typical Indian 
seat, legs straight at the pony’s sides, their 
bodies seeming one with their mounts. Their 
quill-embroidered leggins and brightly beaded 


56 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


belts shone in the sun, but their cold dark eyes 
were never lighted by a smile. 

There was no noonday stop for food, but at 
sunset the outriders who preceded the train as 
scouts, halted for evening camp. 

It was great fun lighting their fire and 
warming the food they had brought with them. 
Fuel was plentiful, and a large spring near by 
provided plenty of water for their needs and 
those of their stock. 

Jack, cutting generous slices from the big 
home-made loaf and buttering them from the 
carefully packed jar Mrs. Copeland had pro¬ 
vided, wondered at the tales of hardship with 
which they had been regaled before starting. 
He had no foreknowledge of the days when 
their camp-fire must be constructed scantily of 
buffalo chips and a handful of sage-brush; 
when water must be boiled and strained before 
it was fit to drink; when the monotonous diet 
of beans and salt pork would pall upon them; 
when butter and milk would be scarce-remem¬ 
bered luxuries. 

“Great, isn’t it?” Jerry said, looking up 
from the coffee he was settling with a dipper- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 57 

ful of cold water. “ I call this the best lark I 
ever had.” 

The rest of the train was in the same holiday 
humor. Much visiting went on along the lines. 
As this was not hostile-Indian country, the 
wagons halted where they pleased, the only 
stipulation being that they did not go beyond 
earshot of the camp bugle. 

No sooner were the supper preparations well 
under way before the camp was overrun with 
Indians, wanting to taste the food that was 
being cooked, wanting to be given sugar, flour, 
bacon, any mortal thing in exchange for their 
gewgaws. 

“ Swappa shawnee? Swappa shawnee? ” 
was heard on every side, and brightly beaded 
belts passed from dusky hands to white ones at 
a lively rate. 

“ Watch that thieving buck, Jack!” Jerry 
warned. “There, I thought so!” as a sly 
brown hand neatly plucked the loaf of bread 
from under Jack’s very nose. “ Might as well 
let him have it now. Heaven knows when he 
last washed his hands! ” 

They got rid of their unwelcome callers at 


58 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


last, and Jerry had just balanced a tin plate 
on his knee and lifted his cup of hot coffee to 
his lips when a dark form bounded gleefully 
upon him, knocking the coffee in a scalding 
• stream over his legs and sending the plate fly¬ 
ing into the air. 

“ Blunderbuss! ” 

“ It’s Blunderbuss, all right, and living up 
to his name as usual,” Jack said, as he rescued 
his own plate from the dog’s frantic wriggles. 
“ How do you suppose he got across the 
river? ” 

“ Sneaked on to the ferry on his own ac¬ 
count, I reckon,” Jerry laughed. “ Look, 
here’s a bit of the rope he was tied with.” He 
hugged the dog’s beautiful head. “ I’ll bet 
you’re footsore all right, old chap. And hun¬ 
gry, too! Well, it looks as though we’d have 
to take him now, doesn’t it? ” 

“What would your father say?” asked 
Jack. 

“ Dinged foolishness! ” Jerry answered in a 
tone so like the Squire’s testy one that his com¬ 
panion burst out laughing. 

“Say, Jack!” Jerry said later, when the 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


59 


dishes were washed and put away and wood 
gathered and laid for the breakfast fire. “ We 
ought to name our wagon. Most of the other 
outfits have their name painted on the canvas.” 

“And sweet names they are, too! ” the Bos¬ 
ton boy said, a trifle disdainfully. 44 4 The Yel¬ 
low Dusters ’ and the 4 Illinoisy ’ and 4 Why- 
away from Iowa ’ and 4 Crust-Busters ’ and 
4 Pick-Handlers.’ One outfit calls itself 4 The 
Forty Thieves’ and another, 4 The LTntamed 
Desperadoes.’ Bet those are the mildest lot in 
the train! ” 

44 1 reckon so, too!” Jerry laughed. 
44 Well, I’ll tell you what I thought of for our 
name. 4 The Blue Jays!’ You’re Jack and 
I’m Jerry, and we wear blue shirts. How 
about it? ” 

44 It’ll do, I guess,” said the other somewhat 
grudgingly. 44 I’d thought of 4 The Cara- 
vaners,’ but I guess yours is easier to say.” 

44 You bet it is! ” Jerry assented and, before 
he went to bed that night, he took his tar 
dauber and printed 44 The Blue Jays ” on both 
sides of the canvas covering to the wagon. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


“ Hey, you Missouri pukes, roll out! ” 

A friendly voice bellowing beside their 
wagon awakened the boys the next morning. 
Now to call a Missouri boy a “ puke ” is the 
insult unforgivable. This term of contempt 
was first applied to the residents of Missouri 
whose Kentucky origin had brought from the 
south some straightforward Anglo-Saxon ex¬ 
pressions. Later, when every third Missourian 
was himself originally from Kentucky, the 
State became a trifle sensitive over the name, 
and Jerry’s generation found in its use ample 
justification for a fight. 

Therefore, on this occasion, young Copeland 
rolled out from his blankets with speed and a 
desire to punish the daring person who had 
called him a “ puke.” 

“Who you calling that?” he demanded, 
doubling his fists and advancing deter¬ 
minedly. “ Kind of early in the day to start a 
fight, but I’m willing to oblige you.” 

60 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


61 


“ Here, what’re you doing? ” came the ag¬ 
grieved answer. The visitor was a young fel¬ 
low of about Jerry’s own age. His round 
freckled face was good-natured, and he opened 
his grey-blue eyes with astonishment at the 
reception he had received. “ I ain’t a-calling 
you anything you don’t call yourselves, am I? ” 

“Call ourselves 4 pukes ’ ? ” Jerry sput¬ 
tered with rage. “ Say, who told you we did? 
If anybody’s started a story like that-” 

The boy hastily indicated the wagon cover. 
44 It’s there—you wrote it yourselves in letters 
a foot high.” 

Jerry stared. 44 Can’t you read writing? 
That says: 4 The Blue Jays.’ Didn’t you ever 
go to school? ” 

44 I reckon I did,” the other said, grinning. 
44 But they never taught me pukes spells blue 
jays! Come around and see for yourself.” 

Jerry walked around the wagon and stopped 
with a gasp of dismay. His neatly lettered 
name had been brushed out and above it strag¬ 
gled the huge letters which spelled the hated 
term of contempt. 

He whirled on his freckled guest. 44 Who 




62 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


did that—you? Well, now I’m just going to 
beat the tar out of you the next thing I do! 
Put up your fists, you mean, low-lived-” 

“ Hold on !” The boy nimbly sidestepped 
the outraged Missourian. Is it likely I’d be 
hanging around here, if I’d ’a’ done it? I just 
come up to tell you your train master wants to 
see you before the start, and this is the kind of 
reception I get.” He addressed Jack, sitting 
up among his blankets, in a plaintive tone. 
“ Say, come on out here and get your pardner 
some grub. He’s one of these here eat-’em- 
alive-bef or e-breakfast Injuns. Me, I’m all 
through making this call! Too warm a wel¬ 
come. Ta-ta! ” He flapped a hand derisively 
and disappeared among the sea of wagons. 

“Now who did that, I’d like to know? ” 
Jerry stormed. “ Some smart chap that 
thought he was making us the laughing stock 
of the train, I reckon. I’ll just spoil his little 
game right now.” He picked up the tar pail 
and advanced toward the wagon. 

“ Better let that go till after breakfast,” 
Jack warned. “ Looks like we’ve overslept. 
Everybody else is eating, do you see? ” He 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


63 


poured water from a bucket into a washpan 
and dipped his head in it to come up dripping. 
44 Whoo—where’s the towel? Here, Jerry, 
your turn next! ” 

“ Not till I get rid of that 4 pukes,’ ” said his 
friend determinedly. 44 If I could catch the 
fellow that did it, I’d paint him with this tar 
and open a goose-feather pillow on him! ” 

Jack, seeing that there was no reasoning 
with Jerry at present, proceeded with the 
breakfast preparations. He had the fire going 
briskly and slices of bacon in the frying-pan 
before 44 The Blue Jays ” once more appeared 
on the wagon sides, this time almost to the top 
of the wagon. 

44 Water the stock, Jerry, and we’ll eat,” he 
called, suppressing a grin at the queer decora¬ 
tions of the wagon cover. 

As time pressed, it was agreed after the meal 
that Jack should go to see the train master 
while Jerry harnessed the mules and made 
ready for the start. Jack was gone about fif¬ 
teen minutes and, when he came back to the 
wagon, he found Jerry almost speechless with 
rage. 


64 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“Will you look at this, Jack?” he said, 
jerking a thumb toward the wheels. 

Jack looked and gave a low whistle of aston¬ 
ishment. The nuts which held the wheels to 
the axles had all been removed. The wagon 
could hardly have gone its own length without 
losing its wheels. 

“ We have a little cut-up among us,” Jerry 
said sarcastically. “ What a nice, humorous 
time he had last night, screwing off those nuts 
and repainting our canvas! And to think we 
slept through the whole performance! Pity, 
wasn’t it? I’d have liked to show our appre¬ 
ciation in some way—several ways,” he added 
grimly. 

“ Wonder why we were selected for all this 
attention?” his partner said. 

“ Because we’re just boys, I reckon. We’re 
about the only wagon that doesn’t carry a man. 
We carry something else, though,” he finished, 
patting his right hip significantly. 

“No gun play, Jerry,” the other warned. 
“ We’ve got a long journey ahead of us, and 
the leaders are anxious to keep things peace¬ 
ful. We’re only one day out from home, re- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


65 


member. We could easily enough be sent 
back, if we started any rough work. Good 
thing we brought extra nuts, isn’t it? We’ll 
have to hustle, too, to get ’em on before the 
bugle sounds.” 

They worked in silence for a few moments; 
then Jerry remembered to ask: 

“ What did the train master want? ” 

“ Only to find out how we feel about travel¬ 
ing on Sunday. He’s asking all the emigrants. 
Some of ’em feel we ought to stop and hold 
services, and others say it’s a dangerous waste 
of time. I told him I’d cast my vote to stop 
and I thought you would, too.” 

Jerry nodded. He knew that each train car¬ 
ried its minister as well as its doctor, vet¬ 
erinary, and blacksmith. It was in effect a 
series of small villages, that great train, with 
practically every trade and profession repre¬ 
sented. 

“ Think Hud Nolen had anything to do with 
that? ” Jerry asked, his thoughts still on the 
mischief done to the wagon. 

“ I thought of him, too, but I guess he’s out 
of the question. I asked the train master if he 


66 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


knew how far back Nolen is and he said he 
hadn’t even left St. Joseph yet! He’s with 
the Ohio train and they drew almost last place 
in the ferriage. We probably won’t see Nolen 
before we get to California.” 

“ Even then I can bear it,” Jerry said. “ I’ll 
tell you what, Jack! I’m going to tie Blun¬ 
derbuss to the wagon after this, or we’re likely 
to find our traces cut and the nuts gone again; 
and we’ve no more to replace them.” 

The boys quickly fell into a routine of camp 
procedure. When the evening halt was called, 
Jerry cared for the stock while Jack built the 
fire and got supper. After a few meals of 
Jerry’s cooking, his partner declared that he 
would take charge of the mess permanently. 
Before leaving home, both boys had been given 
a few lessons in cooking by Mrs. Copeland, 
but they appeared to have been wasted on 
Jerry, who blundered cheerfully through his 
culinary tasks. 

“A generous nature is all very well in its 
place,” Jack grumbled on one of those earlier 
occasions when Jerry had prepared the meal. 
“ The trouble with you is you don’t know 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


67 


where its place is. Did you put all the salt 
we’re carrying in this mush? ” 

When their supply of home-made bread was 
exhausted, Jack undertook to bake a “ hatch.” 
Bread-baking, one of the most important tasks 
which fell to the lot of the emigrant, was ac¬ 
complished in two ways. Some of the women 
had brought a “ starter ” all the way from 
home, a small quantity of bread sponge from 
a previous baking. This gave satisfactory re¬ 
sults, but was troublesome to carry. Most of 
the amateur cooks favored the new “ yeast 
powder,” the forerunner of our baking powder. 

Jack had been carefully instructed by Mrs. 
Copeland as to the exact quantities of flour, 
powder, salt, and bacon fat to use in prepar¬ 
ing his bread. The first time he used too much 
water and got a sticky paste which glued his 
fingers together and sent Jerry into fits of 
laughter at his efforts to free himself. The 
bothered cook rested his hands on the edge of 
the bowl and glared wrathfully at his mirthful 
partner. 

“ Funny, isn’t it? ” he inquired. “ Maybe 
you could do a better job yourself. It just 


68 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


occurs to me that I didn’t come all the way 
from Boston just to learn the art of bread¬ 
making. It’s my opinion-” His ora¬ 

torical efforts were interrupted by a mosquito 
which alighted on his forehead. He slapped 
at it, forgetting the state of his hands. One 
eye was immediately obliterated by the paste, 
and Jerry’s efforts to help him—efforts greatly 
hindered by his frequent pauses for laughter— 
resulted in smearing Jack’s face thoroughly 
with biscuit dough. When he was at last re¬ 
stored to his accustomed state of cleanness, he 
was very dignified with Jerry for the rest of 
the evening. 

He was a patient lad, however, and kept at 
it until he got the “ hang ” of bread-making. 
Before the train had been out a month, he 
could turn out a pan of flaky, delicious biscuits 
which would have done credit to any woman 
among the emigrants. Jerry bragged of his 
partner’s skill as enthusiastically as he had 
laughed at his failures. 

Their butter was soon gone and they had to 
depend on bacon fat and salt pork as “ spread ” 
for their bread. Rice and beans had at first 




THE GOLD TRAIL 


69 


presented a problem which bade fair to shorten 
their lives with worry. 

“ Time to begin on beans,” Jack had said one 
night when their supper had been rather 
meager. 

“ Being from Boston, of course you know 
how to cook them? ” 

“ You soak ’em,” was the terse contribution 
from the cook. 

“ Well, put in a couple of quarts or so. I’d 
like a little something filling for breakfast.” 

Jerry, whose duty it was to care for the 
horses and mules, was the first one to arise the 
next morning. His startled exclamation 
brought Jack hurriedly from his blankets. 

“ Sweet suffering Susan! It’s rained 
beans! ” 

The kettle in which Jack had put the beans 
to soak had overflowed. Beans cascaded onto 
the grass in all directions. A light shower had 
fallen in the night and, in the little depressions 
which held water, the beans went on swelling 
merrily. Even as the amazed boys gazed at 
the kettle, a fresh supply slid over the edge and 
found resting-places on the ground. 


70 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


44 They’re about five times the size they were 
last night,” Jack said in an awed whisper. 
44 We must gather ’em all up, Jerry. Wast¬ 
ing food on the trail is criminal.” 

They brought a kettle, and another. Their 
supply of utensils gave out and they were com¬ 
pelled to resort to the water pail. Then the 
problem arose as to how the immense quantity 
was to be cooked before the train got under 
way. 

44 It would take all day at the shortest com¬ 
putation,” Jerry said hopelessly. 44 We’ll have 
to give some away—it’s the only solution.” 

Filled with neighborly zeal, Jerry set out 
with a kettle of beans in each hand. He was 
gone half an hour and, when he returned, he 
was still carrying one kettle of the uncooked 
vegetable; and he looked both sheepish and 
ready to laugh. 

44 The whole blamed camp is cooking beans,” 
he announced disgustedly. 44 Better keep out 
of earshot of the women, Jack! They’re josh¬ 
ing the life out of me. What’re we going to 
do with this batch? ” 

Jack lifted a flushed face from the fire where 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


71 


he was changing a pan of partly cooked beans 
for a fresh one. 

“ Give ’em to the mules,” he snapped. 
“ They’ll eat anything, and I can’t manage any 
more of the confounded things. Beans! Who¬ 
ever told us to bring a bushel? Look at ’em 
still swell while they’re cooking! ” 

Jack was so clearly out of temper that Jerry, 
suppressing a laugh, disappeared with his ket¬ 
tleful. What he did with them, Jack did not 
ask, and Jerry volunteered no information. 
They had stewed beans that night for supper; 
a sort of bean porridge for breakfast; beans 
baked with bacon for supper; beans—but there 
is no need to continue the monotonous narra¬ 
tive. The boys were past Salt Lake before 
they cooked another mess, and then they were 
driven by stern necessity. 

One morning the word went forth that, from 
now on, the camp was to be made in a circle. 
They were approaching hostile-Indian terri¬ 
tory. The boys thrilled at the hint of danger 
this formation implied. They had heard of the 
great circles into which the wagons were 
swung, hind wheels locked in the front wheels 


72 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


of the wagon adjoining, women and children 
with the stock inside, the men lying beneath 
the wagon to fire at the approaching redskins. 

They were in the low lands along the north 
bank of the Platte when Jack was awakened 
one night by a roar above him. He put out 
his hand and touched a pool of water. A driv¬ 
ing sheet of rain was coming under the wagon. 
He shook Jerry’s shoulder. 

“ It’s raining,” he said rather superfluously. 
“ Coming down in torrents. We’d better get 
into the wagon quick.” 

They crawled out from under their retreat, 
dragging their bedding with them. The short 
time it required for them to climb into the 
wagon was enough to soak them both to the 
skin. A chill wind had sprung up, and the 
boys’ teeth chattered with cold. Soon the rain 
changed to hail, and the ice balls struck smartly 
upon their canvas roof. Their discomfort was 
keen, but they strove to make light of it. 

A whine at the canvas opening told them 
that Blunderbuss was objecting to his wetting 
outside. 

“ Let him in,” Jack said. “ My legs are tied 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


73 


in bowknots now. We can’t be any more 
crowded than we are.” 

The dog’s wet coat added another item to 
the general discomfort. 

“ I pity the folks that are in tents,” Jack 
said. “ Bet they’re soaked through by now.” 

“You can’t be any wetter than wet,” Jerry 
answered as he leaned forward to wring out 
his shirt at the opening. “ Better get out of 
those wet togs, fellow, and into some dry ones. 
Can’t afford to have you sick out here, you 
know.” 

Jack grinned. It was Jerry’s favorite pre¬ 
tence that his friend’s health was frail and must 
be guarded carefully at all times. As a mat¬ 
ter of fact, both boys were as tough as pine 
knots, and neither took any harm from the 
thorough wetting. They changed their shirts 
for dry ones, turned the wet side of the blanket 
out, and were soon sound asleep again, indif¬ 
ferent to the sound of the storm which con¬ 
tinued all night. 


CHAPTER SIX 


For five miserable days the rain lasted, ceas¬ 
ing only long enough to tantalize the emi¬ 
grants, and with provoking regularity begin¬ 
ning afresh just as camp was made. Horses 
plodded dejectedly through the soft mud. The 
men who must walk buttoned their sheepskin 
coats about them and slanted their heads under 
the force of the driving gale. Stores grew 
moldy, clothes sent out an unbearable odor of 
harness and mildew. Tempers were brittle 
and there was none of the usual good-natured 
chaffing between the drivers and the outriders. 

One night when things were at their worst 
and Jack was struggling to prepare supper in 
the lee of the wagon where he had built a tiny 
fire, he was astonished to hear from inside the 
covering a cry. 

“ What the dickens! ” He motioned Jerry 
to cease his wood-chopping. 

“ Sounds like a kid crying,” Jerry said, after 
listening a moment. He strode to the wagon 

74 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


75 


and jerked open the flap. Looking inside he 
gave a low whistle. “ Jack, come here and 
look! It can’t be real—I must be dreaming 
it.” 

Jack peered over his shoulder. On a pile of 
bedding sat a small child, the tears streaming 
down his chubby cheeks. The little breast be¬ 
neath the gingham slip was heaving with sobs. 
He had evidently just awakened from a nap. 
His frightened eyes went from one of the 
strange faces to the other, as the boys regarded 
him intently. 

“Just as natural as life, ain’t he?” Jerry 
whispered. “ Cries and sniffles and moves 
around like he was real.” 

“ He is real, you thickhead,” said his part¬ 
ner scornfully. “ How’d he get here—that’s 
the question. Do you suppose he’s lost and 
climbed in here when we didn’t see him? ” 

“ No, I suppose we brought him all the way 
from home and just now discovered him,” was 
the sarcastic answer. “ Probably he hid under 
the gold pans and just crawled out. Of course 
he’s lost. How else would he be here? As 
for climbing into the wagon, that’s another 



76 THE GOLD TRAIL 

matter. He’s too little to do it. And the 
opening was fastened from the outside. Some¬ 
body’s put him there, that’s what.” 

Jack’s mouth fell open with amazement. 

“ Shut it! ” his partner advised. “ Some of 
your thoughts might escape and be lost to the 
world. The question which now arises to con¬ 
front us, dearly beloved, is what we are going 
to do with this here small person? How he 
can howl! ” He pawed among the stores until 
he found the brown sugar, produced a lump, 
and popped it into the baby’s mouth. The 
wails stopped as though by magic, and a bliss¬ 
ful sucking succeeded. Jack gazed with ad¬ 
miration at his resourceful friend. 

“ I’d never have thought of that! Now 
what’s the next move? ” 

“ I don’t know,” Jerry confessed helplessly. 
His invention had given out with the cessation 
of the troublesome crying. 

“ We’d better report him to the train mas¬ 
ter,” Jack said, after a little thought. 

Accordingly they picked up their unex¬ 
pected guest, taking care to supply him gen¬ 
erously with sugar, and approached the train 


THE GOLD TRAIL 77 

master’s tent. That astonished individual 
could give them no help. 

“ Looks like a put-up job, as you say. 
Maybe somebody found him inconvenient on 
the long journey. Still, he don’t look like a 
kid that’s got that kind of people. He’s clean 
and healthy-looking. Shucks! I don’t know 
what to tell you to do with him. I’ll send 
riders back along the train and make inquiries, 
but till something is heard about him, I guess 
you boys’ll have to keep the kid.” 

They looked at each other in consternation. 

“ Say, we’re no baby nurses!” Jerry pro¬ 
tested. “ We’ll keep him to-night, but in the 
morning you’ll have to make other arrange¬ 
ments about him. Put him in an outfit where 
there’s a woman.” 

Back at the wagon, the question arose as to 
the child’s supper. 

“ I don’t believe we’d better give him any 
more sugar, Jerry,” Jack said doubtfully. 
“ Let’s see—what does a kid that old eat? ” 

“ How should I know? ” Jerry said tartly. 
“And how old do you reckon he is? ” 

Jack cast a speculative glance over his 


78 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


diminutive figure. “About four months, I 
should say.” 

“Man, you’re loony! Kids that young 
can’t sit up, let alone walk. And talk. This 
young fellow has been trying to converse with 
us for the last five minutes. All right, old 
timer, you have the floor. What were you 
about to remark? ” 

“ Rarrar! ” said the baby earnestly. “ Rar- 
rar! ” 

“ Sounds like a college yell to me,” Jack 
said doubtfully. 

“ No, it’s pure Osage, or else maybe Choc¬ 
taw. I’ll try him with a few Sioux words and 
see if he understands.” 

“ That’s baby talk,” Jack announced with an 
air of discovery when the child had reiterated 
his one word. “ Say it again, old chap! Just 
let yourself out on whatever’s bothering you. 
We’ll listen.” 

Thus urged the guest repeated “ Rarrar ” 
at short intervals and, apparently despairing 
of making them understand, burst into re¬ 
newed weeping. 

“ Sugar! ” said Jerry hurriedly, reaching for 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


79 


it. But Jack had been softening some biscuit 
in a weak decoction of tea and now offered a 
spoonful to the wailing child. It was accepted 
gratefully, and soon a cupful had vanished. 

“ That’s the way to take care of children,” 

* '~rr w .r -■ _ . 

boasted Jack, highly delighted with his success. 
“ The trouble with you, Jerry, is that you don’t 
use your brains. Babies aren’t horses or In¬ 
dians to be fed on sugar. See how contented 
he is now! ” 

“All right,” said Jerry cheerfully “ You’re 
elected to look after young Mr. Rarrar as long 
as he honors us with his presence.” With his 
foot on the wheel, a sudden thought struck him. 
“Where is Blunderbuss? What was he do¬ 
ing all the time the kid was being shoved into 
our wagon? ” 

Sure enough, where was the dog? He usu¬ 
ally trotted decorously under the wagon, or 
made short forays ahead. He was always the 
first to answer the dinner bell, as Jack said. 
Now Jerry whistled, but no Blunderbuss came 
running up, bushy tail wagging, red tongue 
lolling out. 

“ Something’s happened to him,” Jerry said 


80 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


anxiously. “ We’ve been here more than an 
hour, and no sign of him. I’ll take a look 
around camp while you put the kid to bed.” 

Blunderbuss was nowhere to be found. 
Jerry stayed up until long after the rest of 
the camp had fallen asleep, hunting for his 
dog. It was after midnight that he fell into 
an uneasy doze under the wagon, to be awak¬ 
ened by a faint, piteous whine. He was in¬ 
stantly on his feet. Blunderbuss stood shiver¬ 
ing and miserable, a great welt clotted with 
blood on his head. One eye was swollen shut 
and the dog dragged his body as though even 
the slightest exertion was painful. 

Jerry hurriedly rebuilt the fire that, by its 
light, he might examine his pet. His wrath 
flamed high as he found that Blunderbuss’s 
wounds had been caused by blows from a 
club. 

“ I know exactly what’s happened,” he said 
angrily. “ The brute that put the baby in our 
wagon struck Blunderbuss when he tried to 
defend it. The poor old fellow was stunned, 
and when he came to, we were ’way ahead. 
Lord knows how long he’s been trying to catch 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


81 


up with us. If I ever lay hands on the man 
that hit him, I’ll sure make mincemeat of 
him! ” 

They washed the dog’s hurts, anointed them 
with ointment from the medicine-box, and fed 
him. When morning came, they repeated the 
treatment. 

“ I’ll tell you what,” Jack said thoughtfully. 
“ Somebody in this train has got it in for us. 
Unscrewing the nuts from the wheels might 
have been meant for a joke—though it would 
have been a pretty serious joke if we hadn’t 
had others with us—but this kind of thing 
isn’t my idea of humor. I’ve been thinking 
about the kid’s being put in here. You know 
kidnapping is about as serious a thing as can 
be held against a fellow in this train. The 
father of a baby that’s been stolen is mighty 
apt to indulge in some fancy shooting when 
he finds the kidnapper. Has it struck you, 
Jerry, that one or both of us would stand a 
pretty good show of getting a bullet through 
our heads in case somebody came along that 
owns this kid? ” 

Jerry nodded his agreement with this reason- 


82 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


ing. “ I can’t get it out of my mind that 
Nolen’s at the bottom of it,” he said. “ It’s 
just such an affair as your uncle’s attempted 
murder that night in St. Joseph.” 

“ Rut we don’t know that Nolen was mixed 
up in that,” Jack protested. “And he’s cer¬ 
tainly not close enough to us out here to be 
up to devilment. He is driving oxen to his 
wagon. I know every ox-driven wagon for 
miles back, and Nolen’s is not one of them. Be¬ 
sides, it’s not reasonable to suppose that a lit¬ 
tle grouch like the one he had against us back 
in St. Joseph would drive him to such lengths 
out here.” 

“All right, who is it then? ” Jerry desired to 
know. “ Who has it in for us to the extent 
that he wants to get us shot, to kill my dog, 
and to leave us stranded on the prairie with no 
wheels to our wagon? ” 

“ Give it up!” the other said with a grin. 
“ Let’s hustle through breakfast and see if 
there’s any sign of the kid’s parents.” 

There was not, the train master assured 
them. The presence of the child in the boys’ 
wagon was as much a mystery to him as to 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


83 


them. Inquiry had been made for three miles 
back along the train. 

“ Keep him a day or so longer,” he pleaded 
with the boys. “ Every wagon but yours is 
full to overflowing. The women will give you 
a hand with his feeding, and his folks are sure 
to turn up sooner or later.” 

So the boys hoisted a now chuckling Rarrar 
to the wagon seat and took their places in the 
train. 

“Anyway, the sun’s shining again and I can 
bend my head without having a trickle of water 
running down my neck from my hat,” said 
Jerry cheerfully. “And Blunderbuss seems 
nearly as good as new to-day. Little trifles 
like the care of a baby and an enemy along the 
trail don’t bother me a whole lot this morning, 
brother! ” 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


“ Buffalo ! Buffalo! ” 

The word sped along the train. Since morn¬ 
ing the wagons had followed a small river and 
now, in the late afternoon, across the narrow 
banks could be seen what appeared at first to 
he a herd of immense black cattle quietly graz¬ 
ing. 

The men of the train sprang into instant 
activity. Guns were hastily loaded and every 
one who could claim or borrow a horse was soon 
fording the shallow stream. 

“ Keep to the rear,” the wagon master 
urged. “ They can smell a man a mile off, and 
the wind’s blowing this way.” 

Sheltered by the small trees and bushes 
along the river’s edge, the hunters gazed at 
their first herd of buffalo. Jack’s eyes were 
stretched to their widest extent and Jerry told 
him in a whisper that he “ could knock them 
off with a stick.” Never had the Boston boy 
imagined anything so huge as these beasts that 

84 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


85 


were moving ponderously about, feeding on 
the short grass. Their great shoulders were 
covered with dark, shaggy hair; their long 
beard-like dewlaps nearly swept the ground as 
they bent their heads to graze. 

Jerry was coolly steadying his musket as he 
awaited the signal shot from the leader which 
gave them permission to fire. It rang out only 
a few hundred feet away, and one of the great 
beasts swerved and fell heavily to its side, its 
eyes rolling in pain and fright. A merciful 
second shot put an end to its misery. 

In a moment, guns were sounding in all di¬ 
rections, and Jerry pulled his trigger and fol¬ 
lowed his shot with his eyes. To his unbounded 
delight, he saw one of the large animals keel 
over as though struck by lightning. His bul¬ 
let had gone through the back of the buffalo’s 
head and come out between the eyes. 

The boy trembled with excitement as he 
forced Rex, snorting with fright, close to the 
fallen animal. The train had swept away and, 
except for a man here and there who had dis¬ 
mounted, even as Jerry had done, to examine 
his kill, the boys were alone. 


86 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“What a monster!” exclaimed Jack, look¬ 
ing down on the great carcass. “ I never knew 
they were so big. A grand shot, old man.” 

“ Beginner’s luck,” said Jerry nonchalantly, 
though his pride was so great that it seemed 
a physical impossibility for him to conceal it. 

“ Luck, nothing,” said his friend ungrudg¬ 
ingly. “ That shot would do credit to an ex¬ 
perienced hunter. The question now is what 
are we going to do with him? I’d like to skin 
him, if we knew how.” 

“ I’d hate to tackle the job,” Jerry said. 
“ I’ll tell you one thing we’re going to do with 
him, though. Eat him! At least as much of 
him as we can manage. I’m so consarned sick 
of salt meat, I hope I never see any again.” 

Jack rode back for knives, while Jerry 
mounted guard over his prize. He soon found 
that so much meat had been secured that no 
one paid the slightest attention to him. Soon 
the sunny meadow resembled a butcher shop. 
The train masters rode about directing the 
skinning and cutting up of the animals, show¬ 
ing the boys how to cut away the rump, which 
was considered the choicest part of the meat. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


87 


The tongue also was thought to be a delicacy, 
and the boys were directed to boil it in vinegar 
and spices, which would make it keep for a 
long time. 

That night the camp celebrated. “ Hawg 
meat an’ beans ” had been its portion for 
weeks. From every fire now rose the tempting 
odor of broiling steaks, and the emigrants ate 
their fill. The boys learned that freshly killed 
game must be cooled in the air before it is fit 
to eat. Thrifty housewives who talked of 
pickling or salting the remainder of the car¬ 
casses were told that, from now on, the train 
would encounter many herds of buffalo and 
they would not lack for fresh meat. 

One of the outriders who had served in the 
Mexican war and afterwards scouted with Kit 
Carson strolled into the boys’ camp and told of 
the way buffalo liver was eaten raw by the 
trappers. 

“ They drench it in gall, just the way you’d 
put mustard on beef, and eat it while it’s still 
warm. Raw? Well, I should sav so. Just 
mention cooking a buffalo liver and those trap¬ 
pers are as much insulted as a Virginian would 


88 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


be at the idea of sweetening corn pone. The 
Indians roast the intestines, too—simply tie 
them at both ends to prevent the melting fat 
from escaping. It looks like a big fat snake 
when it comes sizzling from the fire. Ever 
hear of a dispute de devorant? ” 

The boys admitted they never had. 

“ It’s a contest between two champion buf¬ 
falo-eaters. One begins at one end of a roasted 
intestine, and the other at the other end. The 
one that reaches the middle first is the winner.” 

The boys considered this a rather disgusting 
idea, but the scout was so plainly amused by it 
that they kept their sentiments to themselves. 
He showed them how to cook their steaks en 
appolas: that is, he strung on a sharpened 
stick alternate pieces of lean and fat, and 
roasted them. It was quite the most delicious 
food he had ever eaten, Jack declared. 

“ Shucks, this ain’t nothing!” their visitor 
said. “ What’s really good eatin’ is a whole 
side of the ribs roasted. You take the browned 
bones in your hand, shut your eyes, and stuff 
yourself with the hot meat, and think you’re 
in heaven. ’S truth, boys, when the cook yells 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


89 


‘ Hyar’s the doin’s—come and git it!’ it’s a 
call a heap more welcome than St. Peter’s call 
is goin’ to be.” 

He listened with good-natured scorn to 
Jack’s praise of his partner’s shooting. 

“ Luck—pure fool-proof luck,” he com¬ 
mented. “No animal on earth takes as much 
killing as a buffalo. The lungs or the spine 
are the only two vulnerable spots. Even a 
bullet through the heart don’t kill right off. 
I’ve seen a buffalo run a quarter of a mile with 
a shot clean through his heart. If you hadn’t 
been mighty close to your bull, you’d never 
have been able to git through the thick mat 
of hair that protects his head. ‘ Throwin’ a 
buffalo in his tracks,’ as the hunters call makin’ 
a clean shot, is the hardest of all things to do. 
You were just plumb lucky, and hit the spine 
with your bullet.” 

Jerry was considerably cast down by these 
comments, but cheered up at Jack’s remark: 
“ Well, anyway, we’re eating steaks from the 
result of Jerry’s first buffalo hunt, and that 
fact sort of speaks for itself. I’ll have a pound 
or so more, old timer, please! ” 


90 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Two days after this, while they were still in 
the buffalo country, the boys had another en¬ 
counter with the hostile influence which had 
seemed to dog them since they left home. The 
adventure left them white and shaken for 
hours. 

The largest herd they had yet seen had 
halted the train and sent the men out for meat. 
Jerry and Jack had by this time grown sick 
at the wanton waste of life. The great beasts 
were killed for sport and their carcasses left 
to lie on the plains, food only for the wheeling 
buzzards that sighted the fallen prey from 
aloft. The trail was soon marked for miles 
with the bleaching bones of the slaughtered 
animals. Many were badly wounded, and gal¬ 
loped away to nurse their wounds or to die a 
lingering death. 

On this afternoon, the boys had strolled off 
to a bluff above the wagon trail to await the 
start of the train. As far as they could see 
below, the plains were covered with the slow- 
moving animals. They grazed in great masses, 

with here and there a solitarv old fellow out- 

«/ 

lined against the sky on a slight rise in the land. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


91 


“ Funny creatures, aren’t they? ” Jack com¬ 
mented. “ Ever notice their shovel-shaped 
noses? They use them to push aside the snow 
in winter and get at the grass roots.” 

“ I thought they pawed a space clear.” 

“ People used to think so, but hunters began 
to notice that the beasts they killed in winter 
always had sore noses, and that there were 
traces of blood on the ground where they had 
cleared away the snow. What surprises me is 
that they’re so mild. I understand you can 
walk quietly straight through a herd and 
they’ll part to let you pass. It’s only when 
they stampede that they are dangerous.” 

“ I’d hate to be in front of that herd if it 
stampeded,” Jerry said. “ Somebody’s down 
there now. Got a child in his arms. Can you 
see who it is? ” 

“ No, his hat is pulled down over his face 
as though he didn’t care to be recognized. 
. . . Jerry, look! He’s putting the kid 

down and going off and leaving him! ” 

Both boys hurried to the edge of the bluff 
and peered below. 

“ It’s Rarrar,” Jerry said. “ How did he 


92 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


get out there when we left him with the 
woman in the wagon behind? I’d better go 
down and bring him up here with us. Fool 
trick, leaving him out there alone on the plain.” 

Hardly had the words left his mouth before 
a volley of shots rang out beliind the great 
herd. Instantly the buffaloes stampeded. A 
relentless sea of dark bodies thundered along 
straight toward the small gingham-clad figure 
standing alone and helpless. 

Jerry was already letting himself down the 
face of the bluff, catching at jutting roots to 
break his progress, but almost falling the sheer 
forty feet. Jack hesitated, fearing that his 
weight above Jerry might send him crashing 
downward. Ey the time Jerry had reached the 
prairie below, Jack saw that he himself would 
be too late to rescue Rarrar. 

Jerry was running toward the baby with all 
the speed of his long legs. He snatched him 
up and turned to regain the safety of the cliff. 
A roundabout path at the side led to where 
Jack waited, his tongue dry with fear for his 
friend, his eyes strained to the scene of the 
drama below. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


93 


The labored breathing of the panic-stricken 
animals was like the rushing of the wind. The 
ground resounded with the hurried beat of 
countless hoofs. Jack, held to the spot by a 
dreadful fascination, saw the red earth disap¬ 
pear as the huge black bodies flowed over it. 
Jerry seemed to be crawling, instead of racing 
in front of that vast herd. Jack tried to shout 
encouragement to him, but his stiff lips refused 
their office. And then the boy reached a point 
above the level of the plain, and the next instant 
the flood of bodies swept past him. On and 
on it went, silent save for the rumbling thun¬ 
der of thousands of hoofs and the panting 
breath from thousands of throats. 

“ Jerry! Jerry! ” Jack whispered it, though 
he thought he was shouting his partner’s name. 

They were safe at last, the exhausted boy 
and the baby who had regarded their frenzied 
flight as a delightful sort of romp, and clam¬ 
ored for more. He pulled at Jerry’s hair and 
stretched pleading hands to the plains below. 

“ He wants to do it again! ” Jack gasped, 
and the boys burst into hysterical laughter. 
Jack was by far the more uncontrolled of the 


94 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


two. He lay on the ground, laughing and 
gasping weakly for fully ten minutes, dread¬ 
fully ashamed, but entirely unable to control 
himself in the reaction from the strain of those 
terrible minutes. Jerry was content to sit, 
white-faced and thoughtful, holding Rarrar 
firmly by his brief skirts. 

“ Get hold of yourself, Jack, and listen to 
me,” he said at last. “ That stampede was no 
accident—understand? It was started on pur¬ 
pose—with the idea of putting both you and 
me out of the way.” 

“What makes you think so?” Jack asked, 
sober enough now. 

“ That fellow with the drooping hat saw us 
up here. We were perched up for anybody 
below to see, at that. He figured that we’d 
jump to save the kid if he was in danger. He 
dumped Rarrar down in front of the herd, then 
rode back and let off those shots to scare the 
buffalo and start ’em forward. According to 
his calculations, we’d get down there just about 
the time the herd swept by, and now we’d be 
just a flattened out-” 

“Don’t!” said Jack shakily. “It doesn’t 






The next instant the flood of bodies swept past him.— 

Page 93 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


95 


bear thinking of. Anyhow, it’s a time to act 
rather than think. Let’s hustle down and see 
if we can see anything of Big Hat. We can 
find out about who took the kid, anyway.” 

But it turned out that not even that bit of 
information was possible to achieve. The 
kindly woman who had been caring for the 
baby in the boys’ absence said she had left him 
asleep in the wagon while she went to a near-by 
spring for water. She had heard and seen 
nothing of an intruder. In fact, the sight of 
Rarrar in Jerry’s arms was the first intima¬ 
tion she had of his disappearance. 

The boys told their tale to the train master, 
who agreed with them that the herd had been 
stampeded deliberately, but was at a loss to 
discover the man in the drooping hat. 

“You don’t think Hud Nolen could have 
done it? ” Jack asked. 

The train master looked at him curiously. 
“ What are you two boys so interested in this 
Nolen for? He’s back at least twenty miles, 
as I’ve told you before. He’s with the Ohio 
train, and they didn’t leave for nearly a week 
after we started. Some one’s got a spite 


96 THE GOLD TRAIL 

against you fellows, all right, but it can’t be 
Nolen.” 

“ Just the same,” said Jack as they turned 
away, “ I feel it in my bones it is Nolen. Who 
else would have any motive for treating us like 
this? He’s mighty anxious to get rid of us, 
that fellow, and we’d better keep our eyes 
peeled from now on. A man that’ll stampede 
a buffalo herd and plan to kill three people by 
such means won’t stop at anything, you can 
listen to me! ” 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


“ Independence Rock ! Wait till we get to 
Independence Rock! ” 

For days the boys had heard the words re¬ 
peated over and over. There existed almost a 
telepathic communication along the winding 
train of wagons. Now and then a party of 
gold-seekers, on horseback and unhampered by 
the baggage of heavily-loaded wagons, grew 
impatient of the slow progress and pushed 
ahead. They overtook other wagon trains, 
which in turn were overtaken by caravans be¬ 
hind them. So the news of bad crossings, lack 
of fuel, poor camping-grounds, or favorable 
locations was passed along and helped im¬ 
measurably in the leaders’ choice of stopping- 
places. 

Each train carried its own physician, its min¬ 
ister of the gospel, and its blacksmith, the 
latter equipped with everything necessary for 
the care of the stock. This was not true, of 
course, of the smaller trains, but the boys had 

97 


98 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


cast their fortunes with the greatest of the 
bands which crossed in ’49. 

This train had been organized like an army, 
with more than a hint of military discipline. 
The leaders, realizing the great importance of 
reaching their destination in good condition, 
decreed frequent periods of rest, sometimes 
lasting several days when the camping condi¬ 
tions were unusually good. 

Such a period had been planned for Inde¬ 
pendence Rock, and here, one bright summer 
morning, the boys saw with eager interest the 
enormous mass which they were told was In¬ 
dependence Rock. Nearly a hundred feet it 
loomed above the surrounding country, cover¬ 
ing more than an acre of ground. The top was 
worn by centuries of storms and in the depres¬ 
sions were little pools of water. 

“ There are names chiseled in the rock,” 
Jack exclaimed. “ Here’s 4 Bill Waters.’ 
Who was he, do you suppose? And 4 Elaine 
Farningham ’—what a name to be found clear 
out here! ” 

44 There are graves here, too,” Jerry said 
soberly. 44 See—it says: 4 Sacred to the mem- 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


99 


ory of Herbert White, aged 23 years and 4 
months.’ An emigrant, I reckon, who died on 
the trail.” 

At the foot of the great rock and among the 
gently undulating hills there was a plentiful 
supply of fuel and water, and here the great 
train rested for several days. Much shifting 
of places occurred during this time. Wagons 
which had been twelve, twenty, and even 
forty miles in the rear, rumbled up, eager to 
communicate with friends they had not seen 
since they left St. Joseph. 

The third morning after their arrival, Jerry 
was sitting on a camp-stool outside the wagon, 
laboriously sewing a button on his spare pair 
of butternut trousers. He had perfected a 
system of his own in this operation. First, he 
embedded the needle, eye down, in the soft 
wood of a stump. Then he laid the button in 
its appointed place on the cloth and, approach¬ 
ing the needle warily with his burden, he im¬ 
paled it through the hole in the button, ma¬ 
neuvering skillfully to strike the right spot. 

It was a tricky bit of business and required 
intense concentration. His eyes were screwed 


100 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


half-shut, in the manner of an artist survey¬ 
ing his canvas; his tongue came out slightly 
from between his lips. He was deaf and blind 
to the rest of the world until the needle had 
passed safely through, when he lifted the cloth 
and prepared to repeat the process. 

He was fastening the thread with business¬ 
like stitches when he became aware of an 
amused scrutiny from a stranger who had come 
quietly up. 

“Formerly in the tailoring business?” the 
stranger inquired. 

Jerry met the gaze of two brown eyes 
twinkling under a thatch of bleached hair. 
The newcomer’s amusement was infectious, 
and Jerry grinned. 

“ Carpenter, more like,” he answered. “ I’ve 
got this button business down fine, but when 
it comes to mending rips, I’m strictly not there. 
The kid tore a hole as big as a barn-door in his 
dress yesterday, and I reckon I’ll have to ask 
one of the women folks to give me a hand on 
it.” 

“ I’m something of a mantua-maker myself,” 
the stranger said modestly. “ A bachelor 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


101 


learns to be, specially when he’s on the trail. 
Bring on your tear and let me negotiate it.” 

“ The kid’s wearing it,” Jerry explained. 
“ It’s all he’s got, that dress. He’s away with 
my partner just now, but he’ll be back in a few 
minutes, if you have time to wait. I’ll sure 
take it kind of you if you’ll mend that rip. 
The poor kid looks shabby enough as it is, 
without adding holes to his outfit.” 

The visitor said his name was Russ Peterson. 
“You from Illinois? ” he asked, when Jerry 
had given his own name. 

“ Missouri. St. Joseph. I joined the train 
in the spring, after it had wintered with us. I 
didn’t see you there,” he added with an inquir¬ 
ing look. 

“ No, we crossed at the Bluffs and hooked 
on to the train at Kearney. I’m from Ohio. 
What you lotting to do when you get to the 
mines? Go in for placer, blasting, or crevice 
mining? 

Jerry had picked up enough of the mining 
jargon to understand these terms. 

“ Placer, I reckon. That seems the easiest. 
Say, Peterson, if you’re from the Ohio train, 


102 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


I’d like to ask you about a chap named Nolen 
—Hud Nolen. Ever run across him? ” 

Peterson looked puzzled. “ Can’t say that I 
have. I know every one in the train, too. 
Does he drive a wagon? ” 

“ Yes. Has a pair of oxen and horses 
hitched behind. Kind of a small fellow with 
shifty eyes and black hair.” 

The visitor shook his head. “No such outfit 
that I know of. He must have dropped out 
along the way. Lots of ’em do when they find 
how hard the going is.” 

At that moment Jerry heard Jack approach¬ 
ing. The baby’s voice was upraised in the one 
word which constituted his vocabulary. “ Rar- 
rar! ” he shouted gleefully from his perch on 
Jack’s shoulder. 

Jerry, looking up to welcome them, was 
astonished at the change which had come over 
Russ Peterson’s face. He was staring in the 
direction from which came the child’s voice, his 
face white, his hands clenched. 

“ Whose kid is that? ” he said hoarsely, and 
then, as Jack came in sight, Peterson strode 
forward and snatched Rarrar roughly into his 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


103 


own arms. “ Kid, don’t you know me? Are 
you all right? Anybody hurt you? If 
so-” 

“Rarrar!” called the baby gleefully. He 
patted the stranger’s cheek in an ecstasy of 
delight. “Rarrar! Rarrar!” 

Jerry grinned comprehendingly. 

“ Looks like a family reunion, doesn’t it? 
Say, Peterson, we’re sure glad to find that 
kid’s folks. I’ll bet his ma is nearly crazy with 
worry.” 

“ She is,” the other said briefly. He took a 
step forward, his face stern. “ I’d like to have 
an explanation of this, if you please! 
What’re you doing with my sister’s child—my 
nephew? ” 

Jack spoke deliberately. “ I don’t care for 
your tone, Mister Whoever-you-are! We 
haven’t hauled this baby nearly a hundred 
miles, fed him and washed him, to say nothing 
of my partner there saving him from a buffalo 
stampede, to have you question us like this! ” 

“ Take it slow, Jack,” Jerry interrupted 
quickly. “ Of course he doesn’t know that we 
didn’t steal the kid ourselves. You see, Peter- 



104 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


son, it’s like this.” Briefly he recounted the 
story of Rarrar’s introduction to them, told of 
finding the wagon flap fastened from the out¬ 
side and of their conviction that they had an 
enemy who was endeavoring to bring about 
their death. Peterson listened attentively, 
tightening his hold on his nephew as he heard 
how Jerry had raced with the buffalo to bring 
the child to safety. 

At the end he offered his hand to the boys 
in turn with hearty gratitude. 

“ I didn’t think you looked like kidnappers,” 
he said smiling. “ But coming on to the kid so 
suddenly like that—my sister almost dead with 
worry and despair ... I guess I wasn’t 
exactly accountable for what I thought and 
said. Now it’s my turn to explain. My sister 
and I—she lost her husband a spell back and 
the kid’s all she’s got now except me—we’re 
traveling together to the gold fields. Lois 
drives the wagon and I help drive cattle with 
a fellow that’s taking out a herd. The kid was 
asleep in the back of the wagon, and the kid¬ 
napper slashed the canvas and took him out 
without Lois’ knowing anything about it. It 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


105 


was when we halted at night that she dis¬ 
covered he was gone. She nearly went 
crazy! ” 

“ I should think so! ” Jerry said sympathet¬ 
ically. “ But how come you didn’t make in¬ 
quiries for him? ” 

“Man, we did!” Peterson fairly shouted 
the words. “ Lois was so sure the Indians had 
taken him—there were some hanging about the 
camp the night before, wanting to trade their 
filthy stuff for Christian food—that nothing 
would do next day but for us to drop out of 
the train and hunt for him. We waited until 
the very last wagons had passed us and then 
we had to go on. Say, you fellows, if you’ve 
ever known what it’s like to drive on to the 
trail, believing you’ve left a kid of yours lost 
out on the prairie or at the mercy of wild 
Indians, you’ll have some idea of what Lois 
and I went through.” 

The boys nodded silently. The quiver in 
Peterson’s voice told its own tale of desperate 
misery. 

“ It was your dropping out of the train that 
did the mischief,” Jerry said. “We had out- 


106 THE GOLD TRAIL 

riders going back for days, trying to find the 
parents. Say, what about taking Rarrar to 
his mother right away? And what in the name 
of all that’s mysterious does he mean by 
4 Rarrar ’ anyway? ” 

“ It’s the way he pronounces my name,” the 
tall young man said with a hug of the small 
figure in his arms. 44 1 was mighty proud of 
teaching him to say it; it’s his only word. 
About Lois: I wonder if I hadn’t better leave 
the kid here and go and break the news to her 
first? Maybe if she saw him right off-” 

Jack had a flash of inspiration. 44 Take him 
close to your wagon and set him down and let 
him find his mother himself. That’ll be better 
than any explanation you can make.” 

With unwonted delicacy in boys of their age, 
Jack and Jerry would have remained behind, 
but Peterson insisted that they come along. 
His sister would have a dozen questions to ask 
them, he said. 

Rarrar was put down within a few yards of 
the Peterson wagon and bidden to 44 go, find 
mamma, kid.” The baby trotted forward con¬ 
fidently. From their post of observation 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


107 


behind another wagon, the boys could see a 
sweet-faced girl sitting with idle hands in her 
lap, great, sorrowful eyes fixed on the end¬ 
lessly rolling plains. Her attitude was so 
hopeless, so utterly despairing that Jack felt a 
lump rise in his throat. 

A gurgle of delight from Rarrar made her 
turn. For an incredulous instant she stared 
at him, then with a cry which rang through the 
camp and made women drop their cooking im¬ 
plements and men stay their axes, the young 
mother was down on her knees beside her baby, 
holding him to a heart whose ache was healed 
at last. 

“ No place for us, old timer,” said Jack 
softly, and he and Jerry sneaked away. 

“ Now there are four of us looking for 
Mister Hud Nolen,” said Jerry that night as 
they made ready for bed. “ Peterson thinks 
that it’s Nolen sure enough who stole the kid 
and put him in our wagon in the hope of 
getting us shot or maybe lynched on his ac¬ 
count. It won’t be a great while now before 
we run across him, even if nobody does appear 
to have seen him in the train.” 


CHAPTER NINE 


One bright June morning the train entered 
the great passage through the mountains— 
South Pass. 

The road ascended the ridge which forms the 
backbone of the continent. The elevation was 
so gradual that the ascent was hardly noticed, 
but when they reached the top, Jerry and Jack 
caught their breath with awe at the glorious 
scene which unrolled before them. Great 
purple peaks rose in the distance, their snow¬ 
capped tops piercing the sky. Chasms yawned 
far below the road, and the pine-trees which 
covered the rocky sides looked like moss. 

Though it was midsummer and the sun 
blazed fiercely on their heads during the day, 
the nights were cold as winter and they slept 
inside the wagon every night, fully clothed. 
The solemn stillness of the great mountains 
affected the train, and the drivers spoke to 
their cattle in lowered voices which went echo¬ 
ing among the tall rocks. Now and then an 

108 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


109 


eagle poised above the train with updrawn feet 
and bent, sharply-curving beak. 

One morning, when a two-day halt had been 
ordered, the boys went up into one of the 
canons and had a game of snowball. They 
greatly enjoyed this contradiction in the 
seasons. Summer skies above and snow below; 
strawberries ripening at the edge of the snow. 

“ To-morrow,” Jack said as they prepared 

for bed a few nights later, “ we shall reach 

Pacific Spring. D’you know what that means, 

Jerrv? ” 

•/ 

‘ 6 No,” grunted his partner sleepily. “ What 
does it mean? ” 

“ It’s the dividing ridge of the continent,” 
Jack said rather vaguely. He, too, was 
struggling with the drowsiness which overtook 
them in these high altitudes. 

But the next day, when they stood by the 
pool which rose out of a mass of rock and sand, 
he was more eloquent. 

“ That pool divides into two rivulets,” he 
said instructively. “ One goes down the canon, 
joins Green River, flows south and west to the 
Colorado, and is lost in the Pacific Ocean at 


110 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


the Gulf of California. The other goes back 
over the trail we have come until it finds the 
Missouri and the Gulf of Mexico, and finally 
the Atlantic.” 

“ Gosh! ” said Jerry simply. He had none 
of the Eastern boy’s facility of expression, but 
he was none the less impressed by the possi¬ 
bilities which the boggy pool offered to his 
mind. “ That very water we’re looking at now 
will flow past St. Joseph some day,” he 
thought with a momentary pang of homesick¬ 
ness. He let his mind wander back to the 
summer days which he and his friends had 
spent on the great sand-bars of the river. He 
thought of the catfish they had caught in its 
waters, the huge turtles which waddled up the 
steep banks. He could hear the mellow 
laughter of the negro slaves as they sat on the 
wharf, trailing their dark legs in the water. 
And then he looked at the other rivulet and 
thought of the billowy waves of the Pacific 
Ocean whither it—and he—were bound. 

“ America’s a great country,” he said briefly, 
and throbbed with pride in a land so beautiful 
and vast as his heritage. 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


111 


“ From now on,” Jack told him, as the train 
once more got under way, “ we’re on the down 
grade, and the next long stop is Great Salt 
Lake.” 

After the train left Sunset Canon, the boys 
had their first real taste of hardship. They 
had had no fresh meat for weeks, except the 
few prairie dogs they had been able to kill. 
Sage-brush and grease wood formed their only 
fuel, and had to be used sparingly. There was 
nothing for the stock, and the emigrants were 
obliged to resort to the dried grass they had 
provided for this emergency. 

The problem of drinking-water grew ever 
more acute. All along the way the boys had 
seen the skeletons of stock which had been al¬ 
lowed to drink from the alkali springs. The 
mineral ate through the lining of the dia¬ 
phragm, or “ milt,” as the Westerners called 
it, of the animal. Death was slow in coming, 
but inevitable, though melted tallow was faith¬ 
fully administered to the sick animals. 

Sand and sage-brush, with an occasional 
clump of thorny cactus, made up the monot¬ 
onous trail over which they now journeyed. 


112 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Twice they were almost blinded in a sandstorm 
and frequently they were irritated by mirages 
which were mirrored on the clouds. Pictures 
of cool, tree-fringed rivers and sparkling lakes 
made the boys nearly weep with longing. Day 
after weary day they plodded along, sometimes 
half unconscious of their mules’ steady pull or 
Rex’s tired gait. 

“ Look at Blunderbuss’s feet,” Jerry said 
one night when they had halted to make camp. 
“ They’re bleeding, and no wonder, too, with 
all this sharp sand and the rock splinters.” 

“Tie ’em up with some salve,” Jack advised. 

The two boys spent a busy half-hour anoint¬ 
ing and bandaging the sore feet of the dog, 
only to have him, at the conclusion of their 
efforts, retire to a distance and pull off the 
bits of cloth with his teeth and lick away the 
ointment. 

All attempts to have him ride in the wagon 
failed. He would leap down reproachfully 
when the mules got under way, to take his 
place on limping legs and keep at the boys’ 
side except for short and hopeful excursions 
after rabbits. At last Jerry decided to tie 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


113 


him in the wagon and, for two long days, they 
drove to the accompaniment of Blunderbuss’s 
mournful howls. 

“ Just the same, the rest has given them a 
chance to heal,” Jerry said, inspecting the sore 
feet while Jack started the supper fire. Blun¬ 
derbuss regarded them reproachfully from a 
little distance. 

At that moment an outrider approached and 
hailed them. 

“ Train master says we’re to travel at night 
and rest days till we’re out of this forsaken 
country,” he announced. “ Two hours are 
allowed for supper and rest, then we start on 
again. It’s orders,” he added as the boys 
looked at each other in dismay. 

They suffered from weariness and lack of 
sleep that first night, but the arrangement 
proved a beneficial one. During the day they 
slept or lounged beneath the wagons. Sunset 
saw them packing for a long night’s travel. 

These were dream-like nights as the wagons 
wound through shadowy hollows, or slipped 
quietly over the moonlit ridges. During these 
silent hours Jerry and Jack often talked seri- 


114 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


ously of the future, their young voices hushed 
as they grappled with the big problems of 
mankind. It was a time to test the tempers of 
the train, and it was a curious fact that those 
who suffered most from the heat and lack of 
water were those who were most patient in en¬ 
during their hardships. 

The trail became strewn with the discarded 
belongings of those who had passed this way 
before. As horses died and loads must be 
lightened, or as the sand grew deeper and the 
pulling harder, the emigrants threw aside pos¬ 
sessions which had seemed invaluable back 
home. 

Here, for instance, was a bulky bureau set 
up forlornly by the wayside; here a chair that 
had rocked itself across half the continent and 
now had come to the end of its labors in the 
desert. Chicken-crates, their occupants long 
ago gone the way of the stewpot, were used for 
fuel or, if of non-inflammable material, tossed 
out on the sand. Clothing, ludicrous in its 
suggestion of flamboyant fashion, was a fre¬ 
quent find of the emigrants. These objects 
were often picked up by a wagon which had 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


115 


some spare space, only to be again discarded 
as the heavy pull of the horses through the sand 
made a lightening of the load imperative. 

Jerry and Jack had hoped to become better 
acquainted with Russ Peterson, now that his 
wagon had changed its place in the train and 
was close behind the boys. It was surprising 
how little visiting there was now among the 
emigrants. When a halt was called, the 
travelers were too tired to do more than pre¬ 
pare their meal and settle themselves for sleep. 
At starting time, there were innumerable 
things to be attended to before the bugle blew 
to get under way. 

Early one morning, however, while the camp 
still slept and the sun was just hinting of its 
rise, Russ came softly to the boys’ wagon and 
woke them. 

“ Want to see a Cheyenne celebration? ” he 
asked in a low voice. “ Some of the fellows got 
wind that one is going on a few miles from 
here. Seems the warriors are returning from 
a successful expedition against the Pawnees. 
You can hear the drums now, if you listen.” 

Faint and far away across the sandy wastes 


116 THE GOLD TRAIL 

came a dull booming sound which the boys 
knew to be the skin-covered war-drum of the 
Indians. 

“ Get your horses,” Russ urged. “ Let’s be 
off before the camp knows what’s afoot.” 

“ It’s like this,” he went on, when the three 
were riding out into the morning freshness. 
“ One of the tribe is a friendly old fellow that’s 
been hanging around camp since we got in last 
night. Lie told me about this war-dance.” 

“ Is it safe for us to be going alone? ” Jack 
asked. 

“ Sure—if we don’t come too near. The 
Cheyennes are ugly customers. They’re pretty 
well tired out now with their all-night dance, 
and not apt to pay any attention to us.” 

The boys, remembering how clearly the 
sound of the war-drums had come to them, 
were surprised at the distance they had to ride 
before they reached the Indian encampment. 

Day was breaking on a scene which had 
lasted all night. The braves and young 
squaws, joined in the same circle yet keeping 
the sexes apart, were treading about with a 
peculiar gait. The left knee was kept stiff, the 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


117 


right bent with a half-forward, half-hesitating 
movement. Inside this circle marched, in a 
contrary direction, the musicians: the drum¬ 
mers and performers on the flute. 

“Hay- a-hay! Hay-a-h&y ! Hay-a-hay ! ” 

The monotonous chant rose and fell with 
hypnotic rhythm. The party dismounted cau¬ 
tiously and crept closer to the Indian ring. 
Fires flared inside and, in their light which 
mocked the clear beams of the rising sun, half 
a dozen warriors leaped and fell, leaped and 
fell without cessation. 

“ They’ve been going on like that all night, 
Old Tail - Feathers - Over - The - Fence savs,” 
Russ told them. “ Crouch down here behind 
these bushes and you can get a closer view.” 

“ What are the queer-looking things they 
have on the tops of those poles? ” Jack asked, 
indicating the long staves the leaping warriors 
held. Then he fell silent with sheer horror of 
understanding, for these were the scalps of the 
slain Pawnees! The celebration ceased in¬ 
stantly to be an entertaining performance to 
the boys and became what it was: a barbaric 
rite rendered by a savage people. 


118 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“ Hay- a-hay! Hay- a-hay! Hay- a-hay!” 

It no longer seemed a childish noise, but 
sounded sinister and menacing in the listeners’ 
ears. 

“ Their throats must be made of iron,” Jack 
muttered. “ But what a picture they make! ” 

The sun now fully risen struck across the 
glittering beads and porcupine quill work of 
the young squaws’ costumes; on the rings and 
bracelets of shining brass which all the dancers 
wore; on the vermilion and white paint on their 
faces; and on the lances the warriors flourished 
as they danced. Children stared with bright, 
unwinking eyes at their elders. 

A little outside the range of the firelight, a 
group of the elders sat, passing the peace pipe 
from hand to hand. This pipe was decorated 
with beaver strips, heads, and bright feathers. 
Every now and then one of the dancers, over¬ 
come with hysteria, leaped high with a fiendish 
yell which made the listeners’ hair curl, and 
fell at the feet of these elders. 

It was one of these unexpected shrieks which 
Blunderbuss accepted as a personal challenge 
and replied to with a full-throated howl. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


119 


Instantly the circling bands stopped, frozen 
in their tracks. 

“Run!” yelled Russ Peterson. “Run to 
your horses and for your very lives! ” 

The Indians, absorbed in their dance, had 
paid no heed to the eavesdropping whites. 
Now their easily inflamed natures saw, in the 
trio who had been hiding in the bushes, an at¬ 
tacking party from the train. They bran¬ 
dished their lances fiercely, yelling and scream¬ 
ing threats. The squaws scurried to the tepees; 
the old men scrambled up from their council 
circle: all was confusion, terror. 

“ They can’t overtake us,” Jerry panted as 
he galloped alongside of Jack. “ Their ponies 
are hobbled back of the camp. By the time 
they are mounted, we’ll be half-way to camp.” 

“But if they attack the train!” Jack 
gasped. He felt guiltily responsible. The 
emigrants had been warned over and over to 
do nothing to antagonize the Indians with 
whom they came in contact. 

By this time the Cheyennes were mounted, 
their black hair streaming in the wind as they 
tore after the white men. Indian ponies, how- 


120 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


ever, have neither the speed nor the endurance 
of horses, and these were soon winded. Their 
mounts knew no better than to force them to 
full speed up the steepest part of the trail; 
consequently, they were soon completely 
fagged, while the boys’ horses were still fresh. 

By the time the camp was in sight, the Chey¬ 
ennes had realized the futility of the chase and 
had turned back to their own settlement. 

The camp leaders, hearing the story, de¬ 
cided that the vicinity was not a healthful one 
and ordered an immediate start. Nor did the 
boys get off without a reprimand from their 
train master. 

“We’re getting every day deeper into 
hostile-Indian territory,” he said severely. 
“ Our safety depends on two things: the enor¬ 
mous size of the train and our friendly treat¬ 
ment of the tribes we meet. You imperiled the 
entire camp when you spied on the Cheyennes. 
Even if we had defeated them in a skirmish, 
we would have undoubtedly sustained some 
losses.” 

“ It was my proposal, sir,” Russ Peterson 
said manfully. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


121 


Jerry and Jack would not allow him to as¬ 
sume the entire responsibility of the escapade. 

“ I reckon we could have refused to go if 
we’d wanted to,” Jerry muttered. “ It was a 
reckless thing for all of us to do, and you can 
bet we’ll be more careful another time, sir. I 
think I’ll hear that ‘Hay-Si-hay ! £Ta?/-a-hay! ’ 
in my ears forever! ” 


CHAPTER TEN 


“ Plut! ” 

A spent arrow struck against the canvas 
covering of the boys’ wagon. Neither Jack 
on the high seat nor Jerry astride of Rex 
alongside turned his head to look at it. For 
days the Cheyennes had offered the train such 
little attentions. Its formidable size made a 
genuine attack inadvisable, but the Indians 
could not forego the pleasure of hovering on 
the outskirts and sending a shower of arrows 
now and then in the direction of the wagons. 
One of the arrows had pierced a child’s breast, 
and there was talk among the emigrants of 
organizing a punitive chase of the skulking foe. 
It was decided, however, that such a plan 
would yield no results. The Indians were at 
home in this country and the whites were not. 
The chances were that, once off the trail, the 
whites would fall a victim to their wily foes. 

“Jack, this is the worst yet,” Jerry said. 
“ My mouth tastes like the inside of a copper 
kettle. Haven’t we any water left?” 

122 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


123 


“ Some in the canteen,” Jack said drowsily. 
He was nodding on the wagon seat, almost 
tumbling from his place now and then as sleep 
overcame him. 

The sun beat down with merciless ferocity. 
The boys’ eyes blurred with the glare and from 
sleepiness. The train was pushing through the 
hostile-Indian country at the best speed it was 
possible to make. Camp at sunset; supper 
and a few hours of wearied slumber; then the 
bugle rang for departure, and the tired horses 
were put into the traces once more and the 
wagons lumbered away. Camp again at dawn, 
and another three hours allowed for rest. Then 
on, on, through the burning day, heads droop¬ 
ing until a jolt in the road jerked them up¬ 
right; bodies aching with fatigue, spirits low 
with the conviction that California would never 
he reached. 

But the long hours spent themselves some¬ 
how, and one night they entered Echo Canon 
and thought they had found paradise on earth. 

“ This is something like! ” 

Jerry stretched out on the grass, his long 
legs among the flowers which starred the 


124 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


grove. Above him towered walls of rocks, red, 
yellow, and rose-colored. These rocks took 
fantastic shapes, sometimes resembling tall 
spires, sometimes massive pillars, and some¬ 
times curiously twisted forms hard to classify. 
A stream gurgled its way along the bottom of 
the canon, singing musically. Vines cascaded 
through the crevices of the rocks. Everywhere 
were cool shade, abundant food for the stock, 
berries ripe and luscious for the boys’ picking. 

Here the train camped for three days, rest¬ 
ing, getting the horses well fed, overhauling 
the harness and packing more compactly the 
supplies which remained to them. All was 
preparation for the last lap of the journey. 

Jerry and Jack reveled particularly in the 
berries which grew on all sides. They had 
conscientiously stewed and eaten their dried 
apples, but they had not liked them. During 
their lean days on the trail, they had grimly re¬ 
called a joke of their childhood wherein a hun¬ 
gry tramp was advised to “ eat dried apples 
for breakfast, drink water for dinner, and swell 
up for supper.” Jerry declared that they had 
literally done it. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


125 


Several of the emigrant women made money 
by baking and selling dried apple pies. Some 
wag composed a song on the subject and, from 
one end of the great train to another, its 
sonorous strains would roll and were carried at 
last to San Francisco where, for years, it could 
be heard in bar and mining tunnel, in gambling 
den and camp. 

“I loathe! abhor! despise! 

Abominate dried apple pies! 

I like good bread, I like good meat, 

Or anything that’s good to eat; 

But of all poor grub beneath the skies 
The poorest is dried apple pies. 

Give me a toothache or sore eyes, 

But don’t give me dried apple pies! ” 

The monotony of the food was a real hard¬ 
ship to the boys, both accustomed to delicate 
and abundant fare at home. 

Just outside Fort Laramie they had passed 
a tiny farm where the owner grew spring 
vegetables, but whose prices were practically 
prohibitive. A handful of lettuce sold for a 
dollar and a half. A bunch of spring onions, 
big as slate pencils and few in number, brought 
eighty cents; while new potatoes might have 


126 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


been gold nuggets, so costly were they. Many 
times on the trail they had blessed the foresight 
of Mrs. Copeland who had supplied so large 
a variety in their provisions. 

They were reduced now to the three B’s that 
formed the stand-by of the emigrants: beans, 
bacon, and bread. These, with coffee and what 
game they were able to procure, were their 
menu for meal after meal. Consequently, the 
fruit and fresh meat they found in Echo Canon 
was epicurean fare to their palates. 

“ Let’s not go any farther,” Jack said lazily. 
“ Let’s unj)ack, support ourselves by fishing 
and hunting, and stay right here until we die. 
Eeel the grass underneath your feet, instead of 
red-hot sand! Look at that roof of leaves, 
instead of a burning sky and baking sun! 
Hear the water trickle, trickle, telling us there 
is plenty more where that came from. I be¬ 
lieve that bath we had in the stream last night 
was the most enjoyable experience of my 
life.” 

Jerry tilted his hat to shut out the play of 
sunbeams through the leafy roof. 

“All very fine now, but wait till winter 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


127 


comes and this canon fills up with snow and 
the beans are all gone.” 

a> 

“ The beans will never be gone,” Jack an¬ 
swered with profound conviction. “ I’ve taken 
a vow,” he continued. “ When I get back 
home, I’m never going to touch another bean, 
Bostonian or no Bostonian! I’ve had all of 
’em I ever want to see! ” 

“ Same here, and I’ll add salt pork to the 
list. How would it seem to sit down to a table, 
Jack, with napkins and a tablecloth and every¬ 
thing? Salt in shakers, instead of having to be 
dug out of a sack? Sugar in a pretty bowl 
and china plates, instead of tin ones? Butter, 
too, and cream—and, oh man, no dishes to 
wash! ” 

The last was spoken so fervently that Jack 
smiled. The handful of dishes which, with 
skillet and pot, composed their daily outfit 
were a perpetual nuisance to the boys. They 
frequently packed them without washing and 
delayed the odious task until the next stop was 
reached. 

A few days later the great emigrant train 
rolled slowly into the tiny village which was 


128 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


later to be known as Salt Lake City. There 
was no city here now, only a hamlet which was 
known along the trail as the place where emi¬ 
grants were “ skinned out of their eye-teeth ” 
by the Mormon residents. 

The boys had heard a great deal of the 
leader, Brigham Young, and were anxious to 
see him, but, by the regulations of the village, 
the emigrants were kept strictly to the piece of 
ground which had been set apart for them and 
were allowed in the hamlet only when they had 
business there. 

“And let me tell you those Mormons know 
how to charge,” Jerry declared. “ I thought 
we held the record for profiteering last win¬ 
ter in St. Joseph, but we weren’t a patch on 
these folks. Bill Wheatley paid five dollars 
for a leather strap to mend his harness with, 
and another fellow is out twelve dollars just 
for a frying-pan! ” 

On the third day of their stay here, Jerry 
approached his partner with a startling pro¬ 
posal. 

“ Look here, old timer, I’m getting tired of 
hanging around here, aren’t you? I’ve been 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


129 


talking to Henderson, and he says it may be 
another week before the train starts. Some of 
the emigrants leave here for Oregon, and 
there's a lot of dividing up and settling to do. 
What say you and I go on ahead? It’s a plain 
trail all the way. We’ve passed the had Indian 
country. We’re traveling light and can make 
better time alone. Is there any possible reason 
why we shouldn’t go on? ” 

Jack was rather taken aback at this proposi¬ 
tion. The idea of cutting themselves loose 
from the main caravan had never occurred to 
him. 

“ Lots of small outfits go on alone from 
here,” Jerry continued argumentatively. 
“I’ve seen several start just since we’ve been 
here. If for any reason we decide we want 
to hook up with another train, we’ll overtake 
several before we reach the desert again.” 

“ I’ll talk it over with Henderson,” Jack 
said thoughtfully. 

Truth to tell, the plan, once he had grown 
used to it, appealed to him mightily. The slow 
progress of the heavily-laden wagons was 
now becoming irksome to both boys with their 


130 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


lighter equipment. Many a day they could 
have covered twenty miles and had been 
obliged to crawl along at the rate of ten or 
twelve. Then, as the trail narrowed, camping 
quarters grew more crowded, and even com¬ 
parative privacy became impossible. 

All sorts of people made up the great train. 
Many were educated, cultured persons, seek¬ 
ing to rebuild shattered fortunes in the gold 
fields; others were adventurers; and still more 
were idlers who sought to escape in this fashion 
the responsibilities and legitimate duties of a 
home. 

For some weeks now the boys had been 
thrown with men whose personal habits were 
particularly trying to the better bred young 
fellows. 

“ They live like hogs,” Jerry complained. 
“ The only thing they use water for is to 
drink.” 

Mrs. Copeland had impressed on both the 
boys before they started the necessity of atten¬ 
tion to cleanliness on the long journey. 

“ You’ll find it very easy to grow careless,” 
she said. “ The only way is to hold yourselves 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


131 


rigidly to a routine of scrubbing, washing your 
dishes, your clothes, and straightening your 
equipment every day. I’m sending two civ¬ 
ilized young men to California. I don’t want 
two dirty barbarians to return.” 

Tier half-laughing warning had returned to 
them more than once. Neat Jack and careless 
Jerry had striven to follow her advice faith¬ 
fully. They sometimes neglected the dishes, 
but never the care of their own bodies. Teeth 
had been brushed twice a day when a few 
spoonfuls of brackish water were all that was 
obtainable. Twice a week at least, by hook or 
crook, they managed to secure a bath, though 
once, driven by actual necessity, they had at¬ 
tempted the Arab method of rubbing handfuls 
of sand over their bodies. It made a stimulat¬ 
ing and highly effective method of getting 
clean, but Jerry, as he tenderly patted a shin 
from which a large patch of skin was missing, 
remarked that the Arabs must have more 
layers of epidermis than he had, or else their 
sand was of a softer variety. 

“ It’s a first-class idea,” Jack said 
thoughtfully, referring to his friend’s proposal 


THE GOLD TRAIL 




to CO ahead. ~WeYe passed through the 
worst c: the country already and nothing has 
happened to us. We Ye even lost our friend 
the enemy who was so anxious to get rid 01 us 
a while back- Anyway, let’s go talk to Mr. 
Henderson aixrut it/’ 

The wagcai masoer at host looked grave over 
the boys' proposal. His authority, of course, 
existed cnlv bv common consent of the train 
and did not extend to any plans which con¬ 
cerned a separation from it. 

~ I don’t kke Ae idea, boys/' he said frankly. 
~ But I ;ark stop your gcmg. if you want to. 
I'll us: make cne suggestion. Better do your 
sleeping cne at a time A 1 you're past the 
desert. The cumts Aa: have pushed on alone 
aren’t Ae most desirable of Ae tram. Your 
friend Aat kidnapped Ae baby might be 


an. 


On Ae sixth day after Ae tram Ad reached 
5nr Line, Jerrv and Jack set ch a: davbreak 

^ m m 

cn their oim resrrnsAArr. 

a- • 

“ This is nr em! “ Jerrv said mere lAn once 
dnrinc Ae dav. 


It 


was ~ 


mce to nnd themselves alone on 









THE GOLD TRAIL 


133 


the road, no dust of lumbering wagons to 
powder their faces, no raucous cries from the 
drivers, no bugle to call them to halt or go . 
forward as suited the train masters. The boys 
enjoyed their liberty thoroughly. 

Making camp that night was a new and not 
wholly pleasant experience. They were alone 
in the world, it seemed to them. They built 
their fire of wood brought from the camp 
grounds they had left, and cooked their sup¬ 
per. No hum of cheery conversation rose 
about them; no going to and fro with buckets 
of water, no sound of children playing near by, 
no other noises of the great train’s activities. 

As far as they could see, there was nothing 
but sand and sage-brush. Instinctively they 
lowered their voices when they spoke to each 
other. Even the mules seemed to miss their 
companions of the trail and brayed a message 
across the sandy wastes. 

In the middle of the night both boys were 
awakened by a scurry of feet near by. 

“A lion!” Jack whispered, feeling for the 
gun he had laid beside him before he slept. 

“Indians!” Jerry exclaimed. And then 


134 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


simultaneously, as the moon slid from behind a 
cloud, they saw the upstanding ears of their 
visitor. 

“A jack rabbit!” 

They laughed and lay down again. 

Soon after they left Thousand Spring Val¬ 
ley they had an experience which came near 
terminating their earthly journey. They had 
made camp in a narrow canon, a thing no 
experienced camper would have done. Jack 
was skillfully manipulating the flapjacks he 
had learned to make to such perfection when 
a spatter of rain made him look up. 

“ Great black cats! Look at that sky! It’s 
the color of green cheese. It’s going to tor¬ 
nado or cyclone or cloudburst, sure as you’re 
a foot high. Help me get these things under 
cover before she bursts, Jerry!” 

But with entire disregard of the young emi¬ 
grants’ convenience, “ she ” burst almost at 
once. All the water in the skies seemed loosed 
in one mighty flood. It didn’t rain—it came 
down in solid sheets of water. Above the swish 
of the downpour, an ominous roar presently 
sounded from the walls of the canon. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


135 


“ Jerry, we’d better get out of here,” Jack 
said, suddenly realizing the danger of their sit¬ 
uation. “ I’ve heard about these mountain 
streams and the way they overflow the canons. 
Help me hitch the mules and we’ll hit for the 
top. I’ll drive, and you take Rex and lead my 
horse.” 

Half-way up the precipice there was a shelf, 
some two hundred feet above the bed of the 
stream. The wagon had barely reached this 
elevation when there was a portentous rum¬ 
bling, a roar, and the water in the river below 
rose like a living thing and poured through the 
narrow walls of the canon. 

“Jerry!” yelled Jack, from his high seat. 
“ Hurry! Hurry! The water’ll overtake you! ” 

He could not tell whether the noise of the 
stream drowned his voice or not. His partner 
was half-way up the trail, leading the fright¬ 
ened horse along. At that moment an inky 
mass, rolling and tumbling over itself, drifted 
over the rocks of the canon, hit the walls on 
the other side, and burst into a cataract 
of water. Flying spray filled the air, obscur¬ 
ing Jack’s vision. Water surged about the 


136 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


wagon wheels, reached the bed, setting the 
mules to stamping in nervous fear. Jack, car¬ 
ried beyond the dictates of caution by anxiety 
for Jerry, leaped from the seat into water 
above his waist; not quiet water such as he 
had been accustomed to wade or swim in along 
the trail, but angry water which seemed to bite 
and claw at his legs, striving to draw him down 
into its hissing embrace. 

The boy fought his way downward, blinded 
and almost without sense of direction. It was 
a foolhardy thing to do. Each step might have 
carried him over the edge of the precipice into 
the boiling depths below. But there was just 
one thought in Jack’s mind: to find Jerry and 
bring him to safety on the ledge. Down he 
went, fighting his way, getting into deeper and 
deeper water until it rose to his chest. 

He could keep his footing no longer. He 
must swim, if swimming was possible in that 
wildly whirling torrent. And then a hand 
reached out of the darkness and clutched his 
hair firmly, and a familiar voice said: 

“ Here I am, old timer! Grab hold of the 
stirrup and hold tight! Stick like grim death! ” 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


137 


It took them fifteen minutes to fight their 
way back to the little elevation, and both were 
exhausted by the time the safety of the ledge 
was reached. Rex had made a gallant effort 
against the current and now stood panting 
and quivering in water which rose above his 
knees. The mules, trembling but docile, had 
remained where they were. Perhaps some in¬ 
stinct told them that safety lay in that course. 

Almost as soon as it had come, the flood 
subsided. In half an hour the ledge was clear 
of water, though in the canon below the yel¬ 
low river churned and boiled. Great logs 
dashed down its current. Furry bodies of ani¬ 
mals which had been overtaken by the flood 
drifted helplessly about. 

“ There is where I’d be if it hadn’t been for 
you, old man,” Jack said. 

“And it was to save me from going down 
there that you left the wagon,” Jerry answered. 
Their wet hands met and clasped. They felt 
very close to each other on that little ledge of 
rock, below which death had come so near to 
them. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


They had lost much of their boyishness in 
these three months of hard travel. Their 
young faces were tanned and lean, their eyes 
always alert for danger. The nonsense which 
had tripped so lightly from Jerry’s tongue in 
those first few days on the trail was seldom 
heard now. Once in a while, however, his 
native love of fun triumphed over his hard- 
won dignity, and then Jack laughed until his 
sides ached at his partner’s antics. 

One day they came upon a deserted camp. 
On a tree branch hung a woman’s ball gown, 
hoops, ruffles, and all, a feathered hat, and a 
pair of pearl-grey kid gloves. 

There was a certain pathos about this en¬ 
forced abandonment of the finery some woman 
had held dear, but Jerry indulged in no senti¬ 
mentality over it. Instead, he donned the cos¬ 
tume, stumbling awkwardly about in the sway¬ 
ing hoops, drawing the dainty gloves as far on 
to his brown hands as they would go, tying 
the huge poke bonnet on his head and mincing 

138 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


139 


about affectedly. Tie used a bit of sage-brush 
for a fan and retreated coyly from Jack’s ad¬ 
vances. 

“ La me, sir,” he said in a falsetto which he 
considered an excellent imitation of a girlish 
voice. “ La me, you do embarrass me ’most 
to death ’way out here without a chaperone. 
Will you take me back to the ballroom, my 
dear Mister Montmorency de Staggerfoot, and 
offer me the refreshment of a slight collation? 
This sand does make my throat feel so very 
dessicated! ” 

“ Where’d you get that word—dessicated? ” 
Jack demanded. 

“Apples, my boy, apples! Back home we’ve 
got an old maid that hails from your part of 
the world, and she never uses a short word if 
she can find a long one. One day she went 
into Jule Robidoux’s store and asked for a 
couple of pounds of dessicated apples. Old 
Jule, he wouldn’t own up that he didn’t know 
what she meant so he sent a boy up to Mrs. 
Landis’ Academy for Young Ladies to find 
out. He was fit to be tied when he found she 
meant dried apples.” 


140 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“Well, Miss Gwendolyn Lobelia Van- 
Devender,” said Jack, offering his arm, “ I 
hear the music beginning. Shall we trip the 
light fantastic? ” 

One of the mules had begun to bray and, to 
the discordant notes, the boys postured through 
a ridiculous dance, with Rex looking on in 
grave surprise and Blunderbuss only too eager 
to participate in this unwonted game of romps. 

The boys had need of all the good spirits 
they could bring to this last stretch of desert. 
The face of the trail, knee-deep in dust, was 
covered with loose boulders and split rock over 
which the wagon jolted with bone-breaking 
severity. There was no water—would be none 
until they reached Antelope Springs, almost a 
day’s travel away. The mules brayed irritably 
and Rex hung his head and whinnied. After a 
time the boys’ throats became too parched for 
talk and they rode in silence. 

Bitter disappointment awaited them at 
Antelope Springs. Two threadlike streams 
stole from a rancid pool too filled with sedi¬ 
ment to drink. The boys, consulting the map 
which had been given them by Mr. Hender- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


141 


son at Salt Lake, decided to go on to Rabbit- 
Hole Springs, twenty miles away. 

“And what if we find no water there? ” 
Jerry asked pessimistically. “ Rabbit-Hole 
doesn’t sound as promising as Antelope did, 
and look!” He gestured disgustedly at the 
muddy pool which mocked their thirst. 

“ The map says it’s three times the size of 
Antelope,” Jack insisted. “ Come on, part¬ 
ner! Faint heart ne’er won a drink of water. 
Think how it’ll go gurgling down your throat, 
wet and cool! Think of how we’ll plunge our 
faces into it, take off our boots—mine are 
lined with red-hot sheet-iron—and stick our 
burning feet in buckets of cold water! ” 

The picture was alluring enough to spur 
Jerry on to fresh effort. Mile after mile they 
plodded, the mules’ necks streaked with sweat, 
their bloodshot eyes rolling around at their 
masters as though asking the reason for this 
inhuman treatment. 

They reached Rabbit-Hole just as the day 
broke. At the top of the smooth round hill 
was a cluster of wells. They had been dug 
by preceding emigrants and tapped a vein of 


142 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


water which kept the square holes always sup¬ 
plied. Steps had been cut in the steep banks, 
and the boys crept cautiously down these and 
brought bucket after bucket brimming with the 
precious fluid. 

Now Jack’s fanciful words came true. 
First, the boys washed out the mules’ mouths 
with a rag dipped in cold water. Then they 
allowed them to drink a small quantity, being 
careful not to let them satisfy their thirst all at 
once. The horses they treated in the same 
way. Then with a clear conscience they turned 
their attention to themselves. 

“ Oh, day of mirth and laughter! ” caroled 
Jerry. 

Jack, coming down with a final pailful, 
paused to laugh at the picture his partner pre¬ 
sented. His bare feet were blissfully paddling 
in a basin of water on the ground. Water 
dripped from his head where he had phmged 
it into the bucket. He had a cup in each hand 
from which he took alternate sips. It seemed 
that he could never get enough of that clear, 
cold liquid. 

“ Go easy there, young fellow,” Jack 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


143 


warned. “ You’ve been a long time without 
water. Don’t use more sense with the stock 
than you do with yourself.” 

* 

Presently they cooked a hearty breakfast. 
The smoke of their fire rose straight and still 
in the clear morning air. How good the siz¬ 
zling bacon smelled; how delicious was the 
aroma of the bubbling coffee! Pan after pan 
was filled with Jack’s biscuit and placed on a 
bed of glowing coals, with a lid for protection. 
There was no butter, no cream for their coffee, 
and by this time no sugar. But they clapped 
their browned bacon slices between the flaky 
biscuits and asked no better food. 

“ Let’s let the dishes go till noon. Then 
we’ll eat again and wash up and be on our 
way,” Jerry proposed sleepily. “ I don’t— 

feel—up to washing—dishes—just-” A 

mighty yawn completed the sentence. 

“ Shif’less way—to do,” Jack answered, his 

eyes closing. “Better—wash—wash-” He 

reached for a roll of blankets and settled it 
beneath his head. “ Bet’ wash dish’ now,” he 
protested virtuously, but never finished his 
sentence. It did not matter, however, for 




144 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Jerry was stretched out under the wagon and 
dreaming that he had found a lump of gold as 
big as one of the Rabbit-Holes and was try¬ 
ing to slice it to fry for dinner. 

It was Blunderbuss’s barking which awak¬ 
ened Jerry. He sat up with sleep-dazed eyes 
and stared back over the trail they had come. 
Then he reached over and shook his friend. 

“ Hey, Jack, wake up! Come to, fellow! 
Wake up, I say! ” 

“ What’s matter? ” Jack demanded with 
drowsy dignity. “ Can’t you let a man doze 
off a li’l’ when he’s been awake all night? 

I-” His voice trailed off and he settled 

his head peacefully on the blankets again. 

Jerry wasted no further time in speech. 
There was a bucket of the water they had pro¬ 
vided so lavishly sitting near and he dashed 
part of its contents in Jack’s face. The Bos¬ 
ton boy sat up, wrathful and sputtering. 

“ What the dickens-” he began, but 

Jerry’s hand grabbed his shoulder and turned 
him so that he was facing the trail. 

“ Horsemen,” he said. “ Get that, Jack? 
Not emigrants with a wagon but two men on 




THE GOLD TRAIL 145 

horseback. And one of them looks to me like 
—say, do you recognize him, Jack? ” 

“ Hud Nolen! ” Jack sprang up, the last 
trace of sleep gone from his brain. “ Suppose 
we sort of connect with our guns, Jerry. 
Those two may be just making a friendly call; 
or they may be after water as we were and 
don’t know who we are yet. On the other 
hand-” 

“ On the other hand,” Jerry grinned, “ we’ll 
be all prepared in case their intentions are what 
old Russ back yonder calls hoss-style. Good 
thing we were on the far side of the wagon 
where we can see them without their seeing 
us first off. Say, their horses certainly are 
tired out! ” 

The two on the trail came on slowly, their 
mounts advancing with drooping heads and 
sweat-streaked bodies. The riders, it became 
evident as they drew nearer, were in no better 
plight. Nolen’s right foot was a mass of dirty 
bandages, and there was a rag tied about the 
head of his companion. 

“ Been in some sort of a mix-up,” Jerry 
muttered. 



146 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


He and Jack stepped out from behind the 
wagon, their hands resting significantly on the 
Colts on their hips. 

44 Howdy/’ said Nolen, after a long stare, 
during which he seemed to have difficulty in 
recognizing the pair. 44 You’re the two kids 
from St. Joe, ain’t ye? Wal, guess there’s 
water enough for all of us, ain’t there, with¬ 
out no disputin’? ” 

44 Sure. Plenty of water,” Jerry assented. 
44 Plenty of camping-room, too, because my 
partner and I were just fixing to leave when 
we sighted you.” This was so true to the let¬ 
ter of the occasion that Jack grinned. 

The two men dismounted wearily and, to the 
boys’ indignation, began to attend to their own 
needs before they gave any attention to their 
horses. Jerrv, whose love for animals was 
stronger than his discretion, burst into heated 
speech at last when he saw them preparing to 
cook a meal without watering the thirst-tor¬ 
tured horses. 

44 Say, what kind of men do you call your¬ 
selves, anyhow? ” he said. 44 Don’t you see 
your nags are about dead for water? ” 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


147 


“ Water ’em yourself, if you’re that tender¬ 
hearted,” Nolen sneered. 

Jerry promptly accepted the invitation. He 
sponged out the horses’ burning mouths and 
gave them as much of the cool liquid as he con¬ 
sidered safe in their overheated condition. 
Their gusty sighs of enjoyment more than re¬ 
paid him for his efforts. 

Jack meanwhile had engaged the two new¬ 
comers in conversation. 

“ When did you leave the train? ” he asked. 
“ What became of your wagon? ” 

“ I don’t know that it’s any of your busi¬ 
ness,” Nolen said deliberately. “ However, I 
don’t mind telling you that we lost it in a 
little brush with the Indians. That’s where we 
got these little souvenirs, too,” he added, nod¬ 
ding to his companion’s bandages and his own. 
“ Goshamighty, this foot’s about killing me! ” 
“ Got anything to put on it? ” Jack asked. 

“ Nary a thing. Pardner, you got medicines 
and stuff in yore wagon, I know. I’m liable 
to lose this yere member of mine lessen some¬ 
thing is done for it, and that mighty quick. 
Ain’t you goin’ to fix me up? ” he whined. 


148 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Jack debated. He was as sure as he could 
be without actual proof that this man had laid 
a deliberate trap for his death and that of 
Jerry Copeland. There was no doubt that the 
world would be infinitely better off without the 
presence in it of Hud Nolen. On the other 
hand, they were four human beings alone out 
on the desert, and one was suffering excruciat¬ 
ing pain. Jack knew something of what a 
wound in the foot, untended and in the blister¬ 
ing heat, might amount to. 

“ Take off the bandages and I’ll dress it for 
you,” he said. 

The wound which was revealed sickened him 
in its festering severity. No Indian arrow had 
made that round hole through the instep. 
Nolen had lied about his injury. 

There was hot water left in the kettle from 
the boys’ late meal and, with this, Jack bathed 
the foot and smeared it generously with heal¬ 
ing salve. It was just as he was bending over 
to fasten the bandage snugly into place that 
something struck him a stunning blow on the 
head and he knew no more. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 


When he regained consciousness, night had 
fallen. He lay for a few minutes gazing 
straight up at the star-sprinkled sky, wonder¬ 
ing dully why his head ached so, wishing 
vaguely that he had a drink of water. 

He put out his hand with the intention of 
waking Jerry and telling him that he was ill. 
His hand encountered, instead of his blankets, 
bare sand. He became aware that a fresh 
breeze had sprung up and that he was cold. 
Undoubtedly it was this same chill wind which 
had roused him from his stupor. 

“ What in time-! ” He strove to sit up, 

but fell back with a groan of pain and nausea. 
“ Jerry! Hey, Jerry, wake up, I say! ” 
There was no answer and slowly it came 
back to the suffering boy that the last time he 
had seen Jerry it had been broad day. He 
had no remembrance of what had occurred be¬ 
tween that time and this. 

“ Let me see-” he groaned, pressing 

149 




150 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


both hands to his head and discovering, as he 
did so, that it bore a blood-encrusted wound. 
“ I was bending over—bandaging Nolen’s 
foot!” he exclaimed with a flash of recollec¬ 
tion. “ He must have hit me over the head 
and knocked me out. But what became of 
Jerry? ” He struggled again to sit up and 
this time succeeded, though the sky danced 
crazily before his eyes. “ Jerry! ” he called. 

Again and again he spoke his partner’s 
name, at first in a cautious undertone lest 
Nolen and his companion should be near; 
finally in a shout of desperate fear. 

There was no answer. If Jerry were there, 
he was either unconscious, as he himself had 
been, or—dead. The starlit sky showed no 
still figure as far as Jack could see, but there 
were rocks near the springs, behind any one of 
which might be lying the body of the friend 
who was so dear to Jack Chapman. 

That was a night of which the Boston boy 
never afterwards cared to speak. He spent it 
alternately in crawling about on hands and 
knees in search of his friend, and in lying 
quietly until the resulting dizziness cleared 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


151 


from his brain. He managed to reach the 
springs and laved his wound in the cold water. 
This helped a good deal, but the blow had been 
a severe one and the hours lying on the hot 
sand had not improved matters. 

He watched eagerly for the sun to rise, hut 
day brought no hope; rather the death of what 
little he had cherished. Jerry was gone. So 
were the horses, the wagon, and Blunderbuss. 

Jack was alone in the desert with no food, 
no means of conveyance but his own shaky 
legs, no blankets to protect himself from the 
cold, no medicine for the hurt on his head. It 
was eighteen miles to the next water-hole, by 
the map, and he had no assurance of finding 
help there when he reached it. His situation 
was about as hopeless as could be conceived, 
but Jack strove valiantly to keep up his 
courage. 

“ I have plenty of water—that’s a wonder¬ 
ful help,” he told himself. “ I can live for days 
on water alone. And somebody’s bound to 
come along. This is one of the biggest springs 
on the trail.” 

He speculated feverishly as to what had 


152 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


happened to Jerry. He had looked for but not 
found traces of blood which should indicate 
that his partner had met with foul play. 

“ He’s been carried along—probably to 
drive the mules,” he decided. “ I know one 
thing—old Jerry never left me like this unless 
he was made to, at the point of a gun! Maybe 
he thought I was dead. Guess I must have 
looked like it, with that hole in my head and 
lying there senseless. And to think I was try¬ 
ing to ease that poor galoot’s pain when he 
did this to me! ” His heart burned with in¬ 
dignation. He remembered how he had fought 
with and conquered his reluctance to act the 
Good Samaritan to Nolen. The fact that the 
villain had struck what was undoubtedly in¬ 
tended for a fatal blow during the very mo¬ 
ment of Jack’s careful attention to his foot 
seemed to the boy inhuman—the work of a 
monster instead of a man. 

“ I’ll know better next time,” he said be¬ 
tween set teeth. “ If I ever get that fellow 
within gun range again, I’ll know how to act! ” 

The long day wore on. The sun beat down 
unmercifully and Jack grew feverish from his 





THE GOLD TRAIL 


153 


wound. He strove to remain as close as pos¬ 
sible to the water, but several times he was hor¬ 
rified to find that, in a moment of delirium, he 
had crawled out on to the trail, presumably 
in an unconscious effort to continue his jour¬ 
ney. 

When night came his fever grew worse, but 
this proved a fortunate condition in view of 
the sudden chill in the air which came on after 
sunset. Before morning he was shaking with 
cold and, though his wound was somewhat bet¬ 
ter, he had begun to feel the pangs of hunger. 

“ Some one’s bound to come along the trail 
to-day,” he said, staggering up for the drink 
of water which must be breakfast and dinner 
to him. He strove to keep a stout heart, but 
he knew that a week, two, or even three, might 
pass before a human being would come this 
way. It was growing late in the season for 
emigrant caravans. Those which did come 
now were apt to take a more direct route which 
eliminated Rabbit-Hole Springs. 

On the other hand, there was every possi¬ 
bility that a band of Indians, out hunting and 
needing water, would discover him, alone and 


154 THE GOLD TRAIL 

defenseless. Jack shivered and felt for his 
Colt which was the only thing that had been 
left him. 

The third day a jack rabbit came into sight 
and Jack steadied his shaking hand and shot 
at it. To his infinite delight it somersaulted 
backwards, kicked its hind legs a few times, 
and was still. 

Jack had no matches; no wood. A fire was 
obviously an impossibility. But he dressed 
and ate part of the rabbit raw, and suffered 
no squeamish revolt at its uncooked condition. 
The food put new life in him and he began to 
consider whether it would be possible for him 
to walk until he found help. 

He decided against it. Here he had water 
and, he was inclined to think from his shooting 
of the rabbit, food. Once out on the desert he 
might perish of thirst, to say nothing of hun¬ 
ger. 

The rabbit lasted one day. The hot sun 
made it uneatable after that. The next day 
he had no food, and the next. He shivered at 
night and crept behind the rocks for shelter 
from the cruel sun by day. The loneliness and 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


155 


silence of his position was almost as hard to 
endure as his weakness and hunger. Sun and 
sand; stars and sand—that made up the cycle 
of the twenty-four hours. Not a bird wheeled 
across the blazing sky at daybreak; not an in¬ 
sect chirruped a message of companionship at 
night. 

There were moments when the boy felt that 
his mind was tottering, and he strove to keep 
sane by the recital of various poems he remem¬ 
bered, by counting, by calling the names of 
those who had embarked in the emigrant train 
from St. Joseph; anything to keep from think¬ 
ing of the isolation, the hopelessness of his out¬ 
look. 

Toward sunset on the fifth day he was lying 
listlessly in the shadow of a rock, dreading the 
night with its hone-searching wind, when he 
leaped to his feet in a single bound. He had 
heard something; faint and far away, but in¬ 
disputably a human voice. 

“ Hallooooo-oo! ” 

It came drifting on the evening breeze, the 
most exquisite messenger of hope that ever 
was borne to the ears of the despairing. 



156 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Jack ran out upon the trail and looked to 
the east. There was nothing in sight. He 
whirled about and, a speck on the western 
horizon, he saw a wagon creeping slowly to¬ 
ward him. 

He danced and waved his arms and shouted 
until his meager strength was spent. Then he 
could only wait with uneven breath and eager 
eyes for the wagon to come nearer. 

“Jerry! I know it’s Jerry! Good old 
Jerry! ” he kept muttering to himself. 

It was Jerry. Rex and Prince were tied 
behind the wagon which Jerry drove. As he 
drew close enough for Jack to see more plainly, 
it became evident that both human and animals 
were at the end of their endurance. Jerry was 
reeling in the high wagon seat; the mules were 
forging ahead with dogged perseverance. 
Even Blunderbuss limped with drooping head 
and tail. 

The wagon lumbered up to where Jack 
stood, and stopped. Jerry climbed painfully 
from his place. He laid his arms about his 
friend’s shoulders and croaked in a voice hoarse 
with thirst and fatigue: 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


157 


“ Old timer, here I am! Are you starved 
out? 

Jack tried to answer but could not speak. 
He opened his lips but no sound came. He 
nodded and stood with his own arms about 
Jerry in speechless thanksgiving. 

The spell was broken by the mules’ plaintive 
braying. They had smelled water and were 
eager for it. 

Jerry reached into the wagon and brought 
out a plate of biscuit. 

“ Soak ’em in water and be eating them 
while I tend to the stock,” he commanded. 

“ Not so you could notice it! ” Jack retorted, 
though his eyes were fixed longingly on the 
biscuit. “ Get yourself a drink of water be¬ 
fore you do anything else. Here! Let me 
give you an arm up to the spring. Boy, you’re 
pretty near done for.” 

Jack assisted his friend up to where the 
water bubbled in life-giving purity and had to 
restrain Jerry from drinking too much just at 
first. Then, nibbling a biscuit and finding it 
the most delicious food ever given to man, he 
helped Jerry water the horses and mules. 


158 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


It was nearly an hour before the two boys 
had regained their strength sufficiently to build 
a fire and start coffee and bacon to cooking. 
While they worked, Jerry told his tale. 

“ I looked around when Nolen gave you 
that crack on the head,” he began. “ You sort 
of groaned as you went down, and it attracted 
my attention. I had a water bucket in both 
hands and next thing I knew that dough-faced 
brute with Nolen had both his guns out and 
got me covered. Then Nolen whipped out his 
own gun, and his partner trussed me up with 
a rope he carried on his saddle-horn. Then, if 
you’ll believe me, they cooked themselves a 
meal out of our stores and sat there calmly eat¬ 
ing it, with you lying there unconscious from a 
nasty cut on your head and me tied up like a 
chicken ready for market. I was so mad I 
could have killed ’em both and enjoyed the 
job!” 

“ But what was the idea? Did they want to 
rob us? If so, why did they take you along— 
as I judge they did? ” 

“You didn’t think I went willingly, did 
you?” Jerry said with something of his old- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


159 


time grin. “ They tumbled me in the wagon, 
tied the horses in a string together in back, and 
off we went. Old man, I reckon you can guess 
how I felt leaving you like that, without food 
or fire, not knowing whether you’d ever come 
to or not? ” He paused in his turning of the 
bacon slices and looked across the fire at Jack. 

“ I can guess! I know how I felt when I 
woke up and missed you and thought maybe 
those brutes had killed you before they went.” 

“ No, they didn’t want to kill me,” Jerry 
said. “You were another matter. They 
thought you were done for—you did look like 
it, old timer! and if you weren’t, it was only a 
matter of time before you would be—without 
food. But they wanted to keep me alive.” 

“ Why were they so all-fired partial? ” Jack 
tried to speak lightly, but the smell of the 
bacon and coffee and the knowledge that Jerry 
was safe and sound and with him were almost 
too much for his shaken nerves. Jerry ap¬ 
parently realized this for, without waiting for 
the rest of the meal to be done, he poured a 
cupful of strong, hot coffee and passed it to 
his friend. 



160 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“ Drink that! ” he said briefly. “ Why was 
I to be preserved in all my sweet young 
beauty? Because they thought they could get 
a tidy little sum out of Pa, see? Going to hold 
me for ransom, they were. I listened while 
they got it all figured out. I was to write to 
Pa and tell him I was in the hands of Cali¬ 
fornia desperadoes and, unless he sent ten 
thousand dollars by the next ship coming 
round the Horn, I would be killed. I reckon 
it would have worked, too,” he said reflectively. 
“ Pa would have paid the money rather than 
let me be killed by those brutes.” 

“And because I have no one to put up the 

ransom money for me-” Jack began with 

some bitterness, when Jerry interrupted. 

“ Hold hard, there! You haven’t begun to 
get this thing at all. There was a reason—and 
a mighty good one from their point of view— 
why you should be done for and I kept alive 
to testify to your death.” 

“ What reason? ” 

“Well-” Jerry heaped a plate with 

bacon, biscuit, and beans and handed it over 
to Jack. “ Set your teeth in that, old man, 





THE GOLD TRAIL 


161 


while I tell you. To begin with, have you any 
idea who this Hud Nolen really is? ” 

“ Not any more than you have—or had. 
Who is he? ” 

44 I’m sorry to say he’s a relative of yours, 
by marriage at least.” He amused himself for 
a moment with Jack’s expression, then con¬ 
tinued: 44 Lie’s the Englishman that married 
3 r our aunt—remember your telling me about 
it?” 

44 But what—how—how do you know?” 
stuttered Jack. 

44 1 heard ’em talking when they thought I 
was asleep. They kept me tied up until we 
were well out on the trail, then they took my 
gun away from me and turned me loose. It 
wouldn’t have done me anj^ good to bolt—with¬ 
out food or water, you know. At night they 
made me sleep over with the horses while they 
bedded down beneath the wagon. Well, a 
couple—no, it’s three nights ago I woke up 
and heard ’em holding a powwow with each 
other, and I managed to wriggle into earshot 
without their hearing me. Little by little I 
got a good bit of information. . . . Not 





162 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


too many of those beans, Jack, while you’re 
still so weak! ” 

“All right, boy. But they’re the best I ever 
tasted! Go on.” 

“ It appears that Nolen’s presence in the 
train at St. Joseph was no accident. After 
your aunt died—didn’t I say she died last win¬ 
ter? Yes, just after she wrote that letter to 
your Uncle Edward—he set out for America 
in a praiseworthy attempt to murder both you 
and his brother-in-law.” 

Murder us? Why?” 

For money, my boy, for money! Your 
aunt’s fortune was held in trust for her brother 
and, after him, for you. In case you both died, 
it reverted to her natural heir, meaning in this 
case Hud Nolen, only of course that isn’t his 
name. So it seemed a good idea to him to help 
it revert. He went to Boston, found you both 
had started off with the emigrant train, and set 
out to catch up with you. It was a grand piece 
of luck for him, having you in the train. All 
sorts of accidents could befall you and nobodjr 
know the difference. There would have to be 
legal proof of your death, though, before he 


<< 


66 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


163 


could collect. That’s why he tried to get your 
uncle out of the way that last night in St. 
Joseph. Failing that, he came along with the 
train and left it to his partner to follow your 
uncle and murder him.” 

“ His partner? One of the men with him 
back in camp? ” 

“ Yes. There are three of them, as deep- 
dyed villains as you’d find anywhere. The 
other was our friend with the bandaged head 
who stopped to call on us about a week back. 
You see, by capturing me he could kill two 
birds with one stone. He could collect from 
Pa on my account. And I could testify later 
that you were dead.” 

“ But you could also testify that he had 
killed me! ” 

“ No, honey! I could testify—according to 
Mr. Hud Nolen’s calculations—that Hud 
Nolen, not your uncle-in-law, had killed you. 
Nolen, of course, didn’t intend to figure in it at 
all. With the ten thousand he expected to 
get from my father, he would return to Eng¬ 
land, institute inquiry into his dear relatives’ 
ability to inherit, discover to his great sorrow 


164 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


that both of you were dead, and reluctantly 
receive the money himself. Is it clear to you? ” 

Jack put his hand to his head. “As clear 
as it will ever be, I suppose, until I talk to this 
Nolen person for myself. I’m worried about 
Uncle Edward. Do you suppose that other 
brute’s got him? ” 

Jerry grinned derisively. “Not unless he’s 
a lot smarter’n his two partners! Boy, boy, I 
wish you could have seen me lay out those fel¬ 
lows and drive off with the wagon and our 
horses! ” 

“ That’s so! You haven’t told me yet how 
you got away.” 

“ I haven’t had much chance yet, have I? 
Well, it’s a sweet tale and soon told. I had 
two of ’em to contend with, you see. Nolen’s 
foot grew worse and he was literally out of the 
running all right, but his gun hand was still 
in good working order. And the other fellow 
—Joe Bently, Nolen called him—was very 
much on the job all the time. I didn’t have 
any gun, either. It was a rather neat little 
problem for yours truly to solve. But I solved 
her, Jack, I sure solved her! ” 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


165 


“How?” Jack demanded with justifiable 
impatience. 

“ Well, first I got myself promoted to first 
physician-in-chief to Nolen. That foot of his 
was giving him thunder, and when I offered 
to bathe it and dress it for him the way you’d 
done, he agreed. But he kept a hand on his 
Colt at first. And you can bet I kept my 
weather eye on that hand! One night we 
stopped to make camp and Bently took the 
horses to water while I got supper and dressed 
Nolen’s foot. I had a pail of hot water to 
bathe it in, and you can wager your bottom 
dollar I saw to it that night that it was hot, 
too! Nolen was so crazed with pain from his 
foot by then that he didn’t think of anything 
but getting it into the water pronto. Jack, 
I lifted the bucket off the fire and I came close 
to Nolen and—you can guess what I did? ” 

“ Not his face, Jerry? ” 

“ No, though it wouldn’t have been a bit too 
bad for him if I had. When I think of his 
hitting you while you were helping him and 
then going off and leaving you helpless and 
maybe dying—well, it put extra energy into 


166 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


my aim and I threw that water all over Nolen’s 
hands. Before he could yell, I had his gun 
out and a gag in his mouth. Then I tied him 
up—he didn’t need a whole lot of tying with 
his hands burned and his foot sore—and I hid 
him behind some rocks and bent over my fry¬ 
ing-pan waiting for Bently to come back. He 
was carrying an armful of wood for the fire— 
thinking Nolen was watching me, y’ under¬ 
stand. I had him covered before he could drop 
it. Then I took his guns away from him, put 
him on his horse and gave the horse a cut with 
a whip and started him off, and by the time he 
got turned around again and back to camp, I 
was a quarter of a mile away with both horses, 
the mules, and the wagon headed toward 
you.” 

“And you left them there without any sup¬ 
plies? ” 

“No. I left ’em with their horses, which 
were what they had when they met up with 
us, and also a dandy good supper cooking on 
the fire. And ”—he chuckled—“ I threw out 
a box of goosegrease for Nolen’s burns just 
before I pulled my freight. An act of Chris- 




THE GOLD TRAIL 


167 


tian charity I call that, and highly com¬ 
mendable, under the circumstances.” 

Jack sat thinking over his partner’s courage 
and resourcefulness. After a moment he 
raised his tin cup of coffee and said heartily: 
“ Here’s to the best friend, the finest partner, 
and the dandiest fellow I know! ” 

Jerry reddened. “ Oh, shucks!” he said. 
“ Let’s turn in and get a good night’s sleep 
before we hit the trail again to-morrow.” 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


Cilapparal Hill, and the Golden Land at 
last! 

The boys reached it just at sunset, after a 
long day’s journey which was dream-like in its 
unreality. After the 
flowers and grass! After monotonous flat¬ 
ness—rolling hills and lofty peaks! After the 
duns and browns of a barren world—the rose 
and snow and gold of innumerable blossoms! 

For months the young gold-seekers had en¬ 
dured hardships, faced danger, borne the sepa¬ 
ration from their friends ... to reach 
this land. Their hearts swelled with triumph, 
with thanksgiving, but being boys and there¬ 
fore nearly inarticulate when they were moved, 
they merely looked at each other with trium¬ 
phant grins. 

“ Nice place,” said Jerry. 

“ It’ll do,” Jack answered. 

Later he said, “According to my calcula¬ 
tions, we’re a couple of days’ journey from 

168 


dusty desert—trees and 





THE GOLD TRAIL 


169 


Feather River. Better make camp, hadn’t we, 
and get an early start to-morrow? ” 

Their supper preparations were well under 
way when the boys received their first visitor 
in California. A lanky miner, his clothing 
stained with the yellow clay of the mountain 
soil, came into camp and greeted them la¬ 
conically. 

44 Howdy! ” 

The boys welcomed him eagerly. They had 
been for weeks without contact with other 
human beings. This miner, whose face was 
weatherbeaten and crossed with a livid scar, 
seemed to them a person of extraordinary at¬ 
tractiveness. 

44 What might your names be? ” he inquired. 

Jack told him and allowed a significant 
pause to follow in which the stranger might 
■find opportunity to name himself. 

44 You kin call me Scar face—they all do. 
Powerful bad manners, but then we don’t look 
for style in the diggin’s.” 

44 Are you mining? ” Jerry asked. 

44 Yep. On my way down the valley. 
Coyoter,” he explained. 


170 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“ What’s that? ” 

“ We might as well grub while I’m telling 
you,” their caller said suggestively. 

The boys blushed, feeling that they had 
fallen short of the standard in mining etiquette. 
Jerry produced another plate and cup and 
dished up the meal, and soon all three were 
busy with the hot food. 

“A coyoter,” the miner explained, swallow¬ 
ing a huge bit of bread and spearing another 
piece with his knife, “ is a feller that burrows 
into the yarth same as a coyote. You find a 
good dry diggin’s, savvy? Then you sink a 
shaft to the paystreak and you follow that 
streak as fur under the ground as you kin git. 
You crawl on yore hands and knees like a 
blamed prairie wolf and fill yore basket with 
dirt and hi’st it up to yore pardner.” 

“ Don’t you prop the earth above you in the 
burrows? ” Jack asked with interest. 

“ Nary room for that. The ground’s tough 
and holds—mostly. Sometimes it settles and ” 
—he grinned, showing broken teeth in a black- 
bearded face—“ then there is one less coyoter.” 


u 


Does it pay well—coyoting? 






THE GOLD TRAIL 


171 


“ 8o-so ? ” he said carelessly. “ I took out 
around four ounces a day at my last diggin’s. 
Fellers over on the American are gittin’ ten, 
I’ve heered tell.” 

The boys knew that an ounce of gold stood 
for sixteen dollars, and they caught their breath 
as the result of their rapid arithmetic was 
known to them. 

“ Where’s your outfit? ” 

Scarface pointed to the bundle he had placed 
on the ground. 

“ Fry-pan and coffee-pot; beans and pork; 
flour and salt. Pick, shovel, and pan.” He 
pulled a huge piece of tobacco from his pocket. 

God’s best gift to miners. What more does 
anybody want?” 

Jerry opened his lips for a question about 
clothing, but closed them again. 

“ Whar you hound fur? ” he asked when the 
last mouthful had disappeared. He tipped the 
coffee-pot and, finding it empty, set it down 
with a sigh. “ Sacramento? Wal, whyn’t you 
try yore luck down the crick a ways? ” He 
gestured to the stream which meandered be- 
tween high banks. “ Good place fur you to cut 


172 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


yore gold teeth on.” He grinned at the pun. 
“ Tell you what I’ll do! To-morrow I’ll take 
you down the gulch a ways and show you how 
to git out the stuff. It’s on my way and I’ll 
save a few meals by eatin’ off you,” he added 
hastily, as though defending himself against a 
suspicion of undue generosity. “ That feller 
thar ”—he nodded to Jack—“ kin sure make 
coffee and bread.” 

The boys looked at each other delightedly. 
Ever since they had reached the mountains 
they had been longing to try their luck at find¬ 
ing gold. 

“ We’ll take you up on that offer,” Jack 

said. “ But-” he voiced the thought which 

was in both their minds. “ If there’s gold so 
close to here, why don’t you try it for your¬ 
self? ” 

Their guest was cutting himself a generous 
hunk of tobacco. Only when it was safely be¬ 
stowed inside his cheek did he answer. 

“ Small potatoes and few in a hill to a coy- 
oter—placer mining,” he said, waving his hand 
toward the stream. “ Thar’s gold a-plenty 
thar—if you don’t care how long it takes you 






THE GOLD TRAIL 


173 


to git it out. Me, I crave immediate results. 
Huccome I know thar’s gold here,” he con¬ 
tinued, “ I worked this part of the country 
myself last summer. It’s a good place to be¬ 
gin—to larn yore a-b-c’s of minin’.” 

In the morning he ate a hearty breakfast, 
assisted the boys to pack up, and soon they 
were on their way again, Jack driving, Jerry 
and the miner riding the horses. At the end 
of the second day they came to a gulch which 
led down to the river. It had itself once been 
a river bed, the miner explained, but only a 
trickle of water now crept slowly over the dry 
red sand. 

Scarf ace halted the wagon and dismounted 
from his seat. He took a handful of the soil 
and rubbed it between his calloused palms, 
sniffed it, regarded it critically. 

“ Pay dirt,” he announced, spitting accu¬ 
rately at a manzanita bush. 

“You mean there’s gold here— here? ” asked 
Jerry excitedly. 

“Why not, sonny? Gimme a pan and I’ll 
show you.” 

Jerry was quivering with excitement as he 


174 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


dived into the wagon and brought out one of 
the pans they carried for this very purpose. 
How long it seemed since those pans had been 
stowed in the wagon back in St. Joseph! How 
eagerly they had looked forward to this 
moment! 

The miner seized his shovel, dug vigorously 
into the earth until the soil grew darker, more 
gravelly. Then he filled the pan, stepped 
down to the edge of the stream for water, and 
began to twirl the sand, mud, and water dex¬ 
terously. The gravel settled to the bottom in 
a heavy mass, and the water and mud washed 
over the sides of the pan. 

The boys watched with eyes popping from 
their sockets. Jerry was sure he had caught 
the glimmer of gold in the mud. At last the 
miner, with a last expectoration and a last 
expert twirl to the pan, handed it to Jack. 
Against the mud and gravel in the bottom 
shone loose crumbs of pale gold, one as big as 
a small pea, the others mere flecks of color. 

Jerry swallowed. He was speechless with 
excitement, and Jack was nearly as bad. He 
put out a finger and touched one of the bits 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


175 


of gold, gingerly, as though he feared it would 
burn him. Scarf ace, however, remained en¬ 
tirely unimpressed. 

“ You’ll have to go a long ways back to 
make any showing,” he told them, “ but you 
got the color thar, all right. Wal, I ’low I’ll 
eat with you oncet more an’ then I’ll be on 
my way. Do you aim to stay here all winter? 
Thar’s a shack back in the trees a ways . . . 
some fellers built it last spring but changed 
their plans and went on to Sacramento.” 

“ Mightn’t they object to our moving in? ” 

Scarf ace stared. “ Yore in the gold diggin’s 
now,” he said. “An empty shack’s free to the 
first comer. If you ’low to settle, best take 
your wagon down to the tradin’-post below 
and git supplies for winter. It’s powerful cold 
up here after October.” 

He gave them directions as to the location of 
both shack and trading-post and lounged off, 
bidding them a casual good-bye. 

The boys cooked and ate their supper in a 

sort of daze. They had found gold! They 

were on their wav to become real miners. 

•/ 

They had unlocked the door to Midas land, and 


176 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


their imaginations leaped and soared with the 
possibilities which had been disclosed. 

After the meal and while the sunlight still 
lingered, they strolled down to the gulch; 
carelessly, as though they merely desired to 
look again at the scene of their future labors. 
But Jerry carried a shovel and Jack had a 
pan, and without a word they began to dig 
furiously where the miner had opened the 
earth. 

They carried the dirt in silence to the water; 
filled the pans and began the process of rid¬ 
ding the soil of the superfluous accumulation. 
Jerry grew impatient and slopped the water 
badly. Both found that a certain knack was 
required in the movement of the wrist. The 
grating of the gravel on the bottom of the pan 
announced that their work was done at last. 
Each bent eagerly over the vessel he held. 
Jerry had only a few tiny crumbs to repay his 
labors but Jack, with a howl of delight, caught 
up a bit of gold as large as a small hickory-nut. 

“A nugget!” he shouted. “A real, simon- 
pure, genuine gold nugget! ” 

Jerry washed three more pans before he was 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


177 


rewarded with anything more exciting than his 
first particles. When the mud had disap¬ 
peared from the fourth, there lay four lumps of 
bright yellow only slightly smaller than Jack’s. 
The boy’s delight was unbounded. He 
clutched his treasure in both hands and danced 
and yelled like a maniac. 

This was something like! How easy it was 
to obtain this fabled gold! All one had to do 
was to dig, wash away the soil, and harvest the 
crop that Nature had been preparing for them 
through the ages. 

Darkness overtook them while they were 
still engaged in this fascinating work. One 
more pan, and just one more, they kept tell¬ 
ing each other, until the sun disappeared with 
the suddenness peculiar to mountain regions 
and the boj^s realized that their preparations 
for the night were not yet made. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


Three days passed before Jerry and Jack 
went in search of the cabin of which the miner 
had spoken,—three days of feverish digging, 
washing, and collecting the golden crumbs 
which had fallen from the table of King Midas. 
The mules and the horses had been well cared 
for; the boys were too good horsemen to 
neglect their stock. Meals of a sort had been 
cooked and eaten. All the rest of the daylight 
hours had been spent in the fascinating game 
of mining. 

Their hands were blistered; their backs had 
acquired a chronic ache. At night dazzling 
golden lumps danced before their tired eyes 
and they could not sleep until long after they 
were settled on their beds beneath the wagon. 
The gold madness had descended upon them, 
and nothing else seemed to matter but the 
feverish search in the red clay for gold. 

On the fourth morning they woke to find the 
grass white with frost and themselves shiver¬ 
ing on their scantily spread pallets. 

178 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


179 


“ Time we dug in for the winter,” Jack said, 
thrashing his arms about to warm them. 
“We’ve been a pair of fools, Jerry, wasting 
nearly a week at this gulch when there is so 
much to be done before snow flies.” 

“ We’ll hitch uj) and find the shack right 
after breakfast,” Jerry assented. 

They had only a quarter of a mile to go 
before they came upon it, deep in the pine 
woods. It was just what its name implied: 
a shack, constructed partly of old boards and 
partly of logs. There was one window, which 
contained no glass. A door swung loosely on 
leather hinges. Except for a few rude shelves 
and a table made of young trees split length¬ 
wise and mounted on slender logs, there was 
no furniture. 

Jerry eyed it with disfavor. “Not much of 
a place, is it? I don’t know but I’d rather live 
in the tent all winter.” 

“ Boy, you’re crazy! The snow up here lasts 
from November to March. And the drifts— 
I’d have to dig you out along about Thanks¬ 
giving time. This offers a roof above our 
heads, at any rate, and a fireplace. After we 


180 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


sweep it out and fix it up a bit, we’ll be snug 
as you please.” 

They set to work immediately. Jack im¬ 
provised a broom of pine boughs and cleaned 
the puncheon floor while his friend mended the 
fallen stones of the fireplace. Then Jerry was 
inspired to build “ a Missouri one-legged bed¬ 
stead.” 

Jack who had heard of this famous bit of 
home carpentry looked on with interest while 
Jerry cut a stick the proper length for his pur¬ 
pose, bored holes at one end, one and a half 
inches in diameter, at right angles, and the 
same-sized holes corresponding with those in 
the logs of the cabin the length and breadth 
desired for the bed, in which he inserted poles. 
Upon these poles he laid clapboards hewn from 
the soft pine. 

“ Now spruce boughs, lots of ’em, and cut 
very small,” he directed. “ Blankets and a pil¬ 
low, and the Queen herself can sleep no 
softer.” 

The bed, made up with the blankets they 
had brought, gave such an air of home to the 
shack that Jerry conceived the idea of mark- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


181 


ing it off into different rooms. With his ever- 
useful tar stick he partitioned off the space 
within until their palatial residence consisted 
of: (1) a dining-room, which contained the log 
table and two stumps for seats; (2) the afore¬ 
said bedroom; (3) a kitchen, which was the 
semicircle about the fireplace; (4) a library, 
which held two Bibles, a copy of Shakespeare, 
and the hoys’ writing materials; (5) a music 
room, whose sole furnishing consisted of a 
mouth-harp belonging to Jerry; and (6) a 
study, where the only studying done was that 
required to respect the partitioning marks. 

Jerry took his many-roomed house seriously 
and made Jack take it seriously also. He re¬ 
fused to answer his partner one evening when 
they had come home from a long day’s work 
in the gulch. 

“ Where’d you put the soap, Jerry? ” Jack 
inquired without raising his voice. 

Jerry, two feet away, paid not the slightest 
heed. Jack repeated his question. Getting no 
answer, he stepped forward and, without know¬ 
ing it, thereby crossed the division line. 

“ Say, what’s the matter with you? ” he de- 


182 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


manded. “ Can’t you answer when a fellow 
asks you a civil question? Where’s the soap? ” 

“ Oh, did you speak to me? ” Jerry inquired 
sweetly. “ I was here in the library and 
couldn’t hear you.” 

“Library, your grandmother!” said Jack 
wrathfully, but after that he was careful to 
observe the boundaries. He knew the value of 
keeping up their spirits in the long weeks 
before them. 

“ I reckon we’d better be moseying down to 
that trading-post for supplies,” Jerry said, 
when the shack was in order and they had 
washed out enough gold to make a respectable 
showing. “ According to Scarface, it’ll take 
us three days to go and three to come.” 

“ How about leaving the shack alone? And 
the horses? No use to go in a procession, is 
there? ” 

“No, you’re right. No need for both of us 
to go, anyhow. You take the wagon and get 
what we need, and I’ll stay here and keep 
house—wash out a fortune while you’re gone, 
maybe.” 

Jack recognized the real sacrifice it was for 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


183 


Jerry to make this offer. Both of the boys 
were eager to see the trading-post, exchange 
news with the miners they would be sure to see, 
and vary the monotony of their days by the 
little journey. 

“You go, Jerry, old man! ” he urged. 

It was finally decided to settle the matter by 
flipping a coin to see who should go. Jerry 
won, and Jack, though disappointed, took his 
defeat good-naturedly. 

The night before Jerry was to start, the boys 
pored over a list of the supplies he was to bring 
back. 

“ Sugar,” they both exclaimed at once. 
“Get a hundred pounds if you can, Jerry! 
Maybe more. Seems as though I crave sugar 
more than anything we’ve done without 
lately.” 

Of coffee and beans, they still had plenty, 
but the supply of bacon was low, and they 
needed salt. “ And candles,” Jack added. 
“ We don’t want to have to go to bed at sunset 
all winter.” 

Jerry followed a faintly marked trail for 
nearly forty miles and one day drove into a 


184 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


clearance in which stood a roomy log structure, 
with a sign: 

tf05S THEIVES EM PoK It/44 

“Nice, alluring name for a store,” Jerry 
thought. “ Inspires such a feeling of confi¬ 
dence in its customers.” 

He tied the mules to the rail which ran in 
front of the building, and entered. He found 
himself in a large room whose walls were lined 
with shelves on which the goods were placed 
helter-skelter. Barrels of molasses and flour 
stood alongside mining implements and boxes 
of candles. Damp brown sugar in stone jars 
was guarded as though it were diamonds. 
Bacon and side-meat hung from the rafters. 
Cowhide boots dangled from nails driven into 
the logs. A round stove gave off fierce heat, 
and a huge box of sawdust received the ac¬ 
curately aimed tobacco juice of the loungers. 

Of these, the greater number were red- 
shirted miners. Here and there an elegantly 
trousered and frock-coated individual bespoke 
the presence of the professional gambler. Ap¬ 
parently no discredit attached to his occupa- 


185 


THE GOLD TRAIL 

tion. The miners accepted the waxed mus¬ 
taches and “ biled ” shirts as matter-of-factly 
as they took their own more informal garb. 

The storekeeper welcomed Jerry cordially. 

“Howdy! Just come from the States? 
Glad to see you, pardner! Where’s your 
diggin’s? ” 

After months of comparative solitude it was 
thrilling to Jerry to be among men again; and 
such strangely interesting men! Their very 
talk, a leisurely drawl with a neglect of some 
consonants and an insistence on others, held 
the boy’s attention. While the storekeeper 
hustled about filling Jerry’s order, he listened 
with eager ears to a lanky miner who was re¬ 
counting his experiences at a “ lynching bee.” 

“ He was the durndest calmest cuss I ever 
seed,” the narrator said, referring to the 
central figure of the incident. “ Stood there 
sort of mild and unconcerned, as though the 
whole purceedings didn’t interest him over 
much. Somebody ast him if he had anything 
to say afore they strung him up, and he says, 
kinda slowlike, 4 Wal,’ sessee, ‘ all I kin say is 
that this affair’ll be botherin’ you-all longer’n 


186 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


it will me/ he sez. Yew orter hev saw the 
fellers look at each other! It was so doggoned 
true! After they got the rope fixed to their 
satisfaction, somebody—beats all how some 
folks cain’t never let well enough alone!—ast 
him if he had any last wishes/’ 

“ What did he say? ” 

“ He said, ‘ I’d like to hev a drink of 
water! ’ ” 

“ Water! ” The disgusted chorus rose from 
about the stove. 

“ ‘ Yes,’ he sez, 4 I’d thank yew for a drink 
of water. Like to see how it tastes once more.’ 
With that some of the crowd got sort of im¬ 
patient at the delay and commenced hollerin’ 
to string him up. But the man that had ast 
him got riled and said he reckoned a feller that 
wanted anything as innocent as a drink of 
water afore he cashed in sure oughter hev it. 
The parties in the rear answered back kinda 
sassified, and fust thing we knowed there was 
as purty a ruction over the hangee’s last wishes 
as you’d hope to see in a day’s ride. While it 
was at its thickest and the six-shooters was 
gettin’ in some lively back chat, I happened to 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


187 


sling my eye over to that feller that was waitin’ 
to be hanged, and by the jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! 
he wasn’t waitin’ no longer! He’d slipped that 
noose over his head an’ was edgin’ his way quiet 
and easy through the crowd! ” 

The speaker paused to expectorate and to 
chuckle with quiet enjoyment. Jerry was lis¬ 
tening with open mouth. 

“ Of course I knowed I owed it to the boys 
to pi’nt out what was goin’ on, but I was so 
blamed tickled at the ca’m way he was makin’ 
his gitaway—strollin’ along like he didn’t care 
whether he made it or not—that I waited to 
see how it would come out, and, by the Great 
Horn Spoon, I waited too long! Ding bust 
my hide, if he didn’t make it! Slid out amongst 
’em all, reached his horse, and wuz fur enough 
away to give ’em the laugh afore they found 
out what had happened. I like to split my 
sides a-laffin’ when they adjusted their differ¬ 
ences and turned around and found the reason 
for the party among those missin’.” 

“ It only goes to show what an onnatural 
cravin’ like that’ll do,” one of the listeners 
commented. “ If that chap’d ast for whiskey, 


188 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


like you’d nacherly expect him to do, the boys’d 
had their little celebration all regular.” 

Jerry could restrain his curiosity no longer. 

“ What had the man done? ” he inquired, 
stepping forward. “ Why did they want to 
hang him? ” 

“ Hello, kid!” drawled the narrator. 
“ Where’d you come from? That’s a dog- 
goned purty shirt yore a-wearin’. Git it back 
in the States? To be shore you did—Lem here 
never carried nothin’ so fancy in his stock. 
The feller that was goin’ to get hung an’ 
didn’t? I disremember jus’ what he done. 
Played it low down on honest miners, I reckon. 
We’re a law-abidin’ lot out here, you know.” 
This, with a heavy sarcasm which was greeted 
appreciatively by his audience. 

Jerry settled for his supplies out of the gold 
he and Jack had mined themselves. He had 
half expected the storekeeper to show some ex¬ 
citement at the sight of the precious ore which 
had so thrilled them, but he brought forth his 
scales and weighed it as casually as though it 
were a usual proceeding, which of course it 


was. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


The long winter was over at last. For 
weeks at a time the boys had left the shack only 
to care for their horses which were housed in 
a rude shelter of boughs behind the cabin. 

The wagon and mules they had sold in No¬ 
vember to a man bent on penetrating the 
southern part of the State where he had heard 
that snow never fell and flowers bloomed the 
year round. He had “ made his pile ” on the 
Lower Bar of the Mokelumne and he wanted 
to spend the rest of his days loafing in the sun¬ 
shine. He offered the boys two thousand dol¬ 
lars in gold for their outfit, and as they ex¬ 
pected to have no further use for it, they seized 
the opportunity to rid themselves of what, 
later, would prove a burden. 

For Jerry and Jack had very definite plans 
as to their future. They intended to spend the 
next spring and summer in mining, and work 
down to San Francisco in the fall, passing 
through Sacramento." They wished to spend 
their second California winter in San Fran- 

189 


190 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


cisco, of which boisterous city they had heard 
even in their isolated shack. 

In after years, that first winter, high in the 
hills and buried much of the time to the cabin 
window in snow, seemed like a dream to the 
young emigrants. Beyond the preparation 
and eating of their simple meals and attending 
to the needs of the horses, there was absolutely 
nothing for them to do. They had cut wood 
enough to insure a plentiful supply. 

Now and then they went hunting and 
brought in a deer, or a great bronze turkey, or 
grouse to add to their menu. Once Jack killed 
a mountain lion not a hundred yards from the 
shack and brought the great fierce cat in for 
Jerry to see. In desperation, one afternoon 
Jack took up the volume of Shakespeare which 
Mrs. Copeland had optimistically tucked into 
the wagon, and began reading “ Hamlet ” 
aloud to the vigorously protesting Jerry. 
After a time, however, both boys grew in¬ 
terested in the burning emotions of the young 
Dane, and this led to a course in Shakespeare 
readings which later dumfounded Squire 
Copeland when he heard of it. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


191 


In February, they had a visitor. Late one 
evening they heard a cheery voice caroling 
outside the shack: 


“ On Selby Flat we live in style, 

We’ll stay right here till we make our pile. 
We’re sure to do it after a while, 

Then good-bye to Californy! ” 


<< 


<< 


Jerry flung open the door hospitably, but his 
smile of welcome changed to a scowl when the 
newcomer inquired: 

You the Missouri pukes? ” 

We’re the Blue Jays,” young Copeland 
said stiffly. “ Can’t you read the sign over the 
door? ” For one of Jerry’s first acts had been 
to letter the name on a piece of canvas and nail 
it above the door when they moved into the 
shack. 

The stranger squinted upward. “ Can’t say 
as I kin—what you might eszactly call read¬ 
ing,” he said. “ No offence intended about the 
name, pard! I heared down at Ground Hog 
Glory you was called the Missouri—wal, that 

that was vore name.” 

•/ 

“ Who told you so, and where and what is 

9 



192 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Ground Hog Glory? ” Jerry asked crisply, 
still standing in the doorway. 

“ Mought I come in? ” The question was 
put with such insinuating softness that the boy 
laughed and waved the self-invited guest 
inside. 

He eased the pack he carried down to the 
floor, rubbing his shoulders briskly. 

“ Who told me? Fellow by the name of 
Nolen. He ’lowed you and yore pardner done 
him dirt back on the trail—left him sick an’ 
sufferin’ and without no provender. You 
don’t look like that kind of skunks,” he fin¬ 
ished politely. 

Jack forestalled Jerry’s heated reply. He 
told briefly the circumstances of their encoun¬ 
ter with Nolen and Bently, and the stranger 
nodded sagely. 

“ I ’lowed that mought be the way of it. 
Nolen ain’t any too well-liked down at Ground 
Hog. We sort o’ suspicion he belongs to the 
Hounds.” 

“ Who are the Hounds? ” Jack wanted to 
know. 


* 


“ I thought everybody from here to N’Yor- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


193 


leans knowed about the Hounds! Wal, they 
was a little association that got theirselves in 
moughty close quarters with Ole Man Trouble 
back in San Francisco last July,” he explained. 
“ They did a power of shootin’, some of it le¬ 
gitimate, an’ some of it not, an’ at last the law 
got hold of them. The leaders was tried and 
convicted, but a lot of the gang scattered into 
the hills, and the talk is that they’re organizing 
again under a new leader. Seems to be be¬ 
lieved yore friend Nolen mought be that 
leader. Anyway, he come from Mugfuzzle 
Flat over to Ground Hog Glory an’ brought 
a mighty pesky lot of fellers along with him. 
That’s why I left. I’m sorter particular about 
who I ’sociate with,” he ended cheerfully. 

Jack grinned at him. “ Going to stay to 
supper with us? ” 

“ If I’m urged right hard,” the visitor as¬ 
sented modestly. “ Maybe all night, too, seein’ 
it’ll be dark pretty soon an’ it’s a long way to 
my next stopping-place.” 

“ How far is this Ground Hog Glory where 
you say Nolen is, from here? ” Jerry asked. 

“ ’Bout twenty mile. There’s a trail 


194 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


branches off from the road down by the gulch. 
Placer minin’, you two? ” 

Jack described their methods and prospects 
to him, and he gave them some sage advice. 

“ Coyotin’s the thing about here! I know 
these diggin’s. Come spring, you work back 
from the gulch ’bout a hundred yards to the 
east an’ sink yore hole. You’ll strike pay dirt 
’bout eight feet down.” 

“ You seem to know a good deal about this 
region,” suggested Jerry. 

“ I ought ter,” their visitor said. “ I he’ped 
to build this yere shack! ” 

A sudden thought struck Jack. “ And 
you’ve come back here now to open up your 
old claim? ” 

The boys exchanged glances of dismay. 
After all, they were not the owners of the 
shack and had no more right to the diggings 
in the gulch than any other traveling miner; 
not as much right as this man had, if his story 
of helping to build the cabin was true. 

“ Nary a time,” said the bearded stranger 
good-naturedly. “ \Ye-all left of our own free 
will an’ accord. You come along an’ find it 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


195 


empty an’ move in. That makes it yourn, 
accordin’ to miner’s law.” 

“ I suppose you could stay and work the 
claim with us in the spring,” Jack said doubt¬ 
fully. 

He shook his head. “ Plenty for two—not 
’nuff for three. Gimme some of that supper I 
smell a-cookin’ and a shakedown in the corner, 
an’ I’ll call it square.” In the morning, as he 
left, he repeated his advice about coyote min¬ 
ing. “ You’ll clean up more’n in a day than 
you will down at the gulch in a week,” he pre¬ 
dicted. 

This visit made the boys even more im¬ 
patient for spring to come. They talked over 
the coyote mining plan and decided to give it 
a trial. To this end they contrived sacks of 
burlap in which the grain for the stock had 
been carried. In these, they would bring to the 
surface for washing the pay dirt they hoped 
to find below. Also, there was always the hope 
of a “nest” of nuggets; such had been found 
in this very vicinity, their bearded friend had 
told them. 

When the snow began to melt, a steady 



196 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


stream of miners, their worldly possessions 
carried in a bundle, picks and shovels strapped 
together, stopped at the shack to get a meal 
and give the boys the latest news of the mines. 
The tidings from Table Mountain continued 
to deal with fabulous finds. 

For the most part, these stories partook of 
Arabian Nights magnificence. A miner had 
uncovered a vein of pure gold eight inches 
wide and half as many in thickness, was one 
tale. It ran back into the mountain to an un¬ 
known distance, and all the lucky discoverer 

/ 

had to do was to hew out blocks of his treasure, 
rumor said. 

As a matter of fact, the actual discoveries 
were so remarkable that fact and fancy 
mingled in well-nigh inseparable proportions. 
It was a time such as America had never seen, 
never would see again. Men who had toiled 
to wrest a scant livelihood from barren New 
England farms were leaving regions where 
they took out in a day enough gold to support 
their families in luxury for a year; leaving be¬ 
cause over the forest telegraph had come tales 
of richer, more accessible fields farther on. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


197 


They were like children picking berries: the 
patch just beyond always lured them. 

But the gold, like the berries, was there; and 
there was solid foundation for some of the 
staggering tales told by the visitors who came 
to the shack. 

By the middle of April the ground was dry 
enough to begin operations. The boys selected 
a site near the spot described by the coyote 
miner. They found marks of a previous at¬ 
tempt at this sort of mining. 

Almost at once they struck a deposit of pay 
dirt. Their method was of the crudest and, 
because of their lack of numbers, they were not 
able to better it. Jerry dug, with a short- 
handled shovel, along the strata, filling a 
bucket which he tied to a rope, the other end 
of which Jack manipulated. This soil was 
packed into sacks and, on alternate days, the 
boys washed it out at the stream in the cradle. 
It yielded, if not marvelous returns, much 
more than the gulch soil had done. The clay 
was stiff and, with the narrow channels Jerry 
dug—channels greatly resembling a coyote’s 
burrowings—the walls and roof held. 


198 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


One morning in early May, Jerry descended 
the hole for further excavation. A heavy rain 
had fallen during the night and, when the boy 
thrust his lighted torch into the depths of the 
tunnel, he was dismayed to see that the earth 
at the end had sunk, covering the last marks 
of his shovel entirely. 

“ Here’s a pretty mess,” he muttered. 
“ Wonder if we’ll have to timber after all! ” 

The flickering gleams of his torch, which 
was crudely made of oil-soaked rags tied to a 
stick, showed him something besides the fallen 
earth; something which made his breath come 
fast with excitement. Centuries before, a 
stream of water had trickled through the soil 
at this spot and, in the porous passage it made, 
the heavier lumps of gold had washed. 

They struck the stiffer floor of clay. The 
earth settled over and around them. There 
they had lain until a Missouri boy and a 
Boston boy, armed with the puny tools of man, 
had loosened the walls of their prison. The 
rain had done the rest. The gleaming nuggets, 
some forty or fifty in number, and ranging in 
size from a small hazelnut to lumps as big as 


THE GOLD TRAIL 199 

a hen’s egg, lay shining against the tumbled 
earth. 

“ It’s a pocket! ” said Jerry, his eyes bulg¬ 
ing. Forgetting that Jack was down at the 
gulch, he lifted his voice in a joyous yell. 
“ Nuggets, Jack! Pecks, bushels of them! 
Come on up here! ” 

Where now was the newly acquired wisdom 
of the young miner? Where his caution, his 
sober second thought? Flung to the winds in 
his jubilation over this rich find. 

Jerry should have been warned by the col¬ 
lapse of the farther end of the tunnel. He 
should have remembered the unusual depth for 
a coyote hole to which he had dug. Above all, 
he should not have undertaken to dance a jig 
of delight over his prize. 

“ If you ever showed half as much ingenuity 
in keeping out of trouble as you do in get¬ 
ting out of it,” the exasperated Squire had 
been wont to say to his son, “ we shouldn’t have 
so many dinged narrow escapes to remember.” 

For all his hardly acquired knowledge of 
danger, for all his resourcefulness and courage, 
Jerry was but a boy after all, with a boy’s in- 


200 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


difference to maturity’s warnings. Gold—not 
in scanty grains, but in glorious shining lumps 
—lay almost at his fingers’ ends. He had but 
one thought: to bring it to the surface to gloat 
over, to caress, to exhibit proudly to Jack. 

He went down on his hands and knees to 
collect the beautiful glimmering lumps. A 
smothering weight descended on his back and 
shoulders. The heavy walls of clay collapsed 
without sound or apparent motion. 

Jerry’s first thought was of Jack. Would 
he return from the gulch in time to free his 
partner? The tunnel had caved in. Alone on 
the hillside where none knew what had hap¬ 
pened, he was buried under tons of California 
clay. 

His crouching position provided a small area 
of clear space beneath him. His back and 
shoulders were under a terrific strain, but he 
braced his hands against the bottom and main¬ 
tained his position. How long could he hold 
out ? And how long would the imprisoned air 
serve his needs? 

Jerry’s quick brain moved with lightning- 
like celerity. The moment would inevitably 




“It’s a pocket!” 


said Jerry, his eyes bulging.— Page 199. 





















THE GOLD TRAIL 


201 


come when the wearied muscles would succumb 
and his face would be crushed into the wet clay 
of the flooring. Then there would be . . . 

a choked gasping for breath . . . pound¬ 

ing lungs and hammering heart 
futile struggles ... at last, merciful 
oblivion. 

Jerry had need of all his self-control not to 
give way to frantic efforts for freedom as this 
picture came to him. He must hold still—for 
how long and to what end, he knew not. Per¬ 
haps he was only prolonging his agony, put¬ 
ting off by a few anguished minutes the dread¬ 
ful instant when he must yield to the pressure 
of the weight above him. For a moment he 
was tempted to let the tortured muscles of back 
and shoulders cease their support. 

“ Buck up, Jerry Copeland! Hang on with 
the last ounce of strength that’s in you—if you 
want to see the sun again! ” 

The sun! Above him it was shining glori¬ 
ously, that kindly California sun. White 
clouds drifted across a radiantly blue sky. 
Birds were singing, thousands of flowers were 
in bloom in a beautiful world which he might 


202 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


never see again. Was this to be his end—a 
grave on a hillside in an alien land, a heap of 
glittering hidden gold for his monument? 
Suddenly the boy hated the thought of those 
shining, unfeeling lumps. What were they 
but playthings for children, foolish toys for 
which men were risking the sunshine, the fresh 
sweet air, the ability to laugh, to run, to live! 

Would Jack come hack in time? 

The weight on his back was growing unen¬ 
durable. His arms had long since turned to 
stiff, unfeeling bars; the cords of his neck were 
numb with strain. He was breathing shallowly, 
in the hope of preserving the little air which 
the aperture held. Perhaps that was what was 
making him so dizzy? His light breathing, 
not the—the failure of oxygen in the air? 

“Dinged careless business!” 

Was that his father who spoke? It was what 
Pa would say, if he knew the facts. Pa—his 
mother—hard on them, losing their only son 
like this! Jerry felt a sudden sense of pity for 
his parents, quite detached from his own terror 
and suffering. 

He couldn’t hold up the weight another 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


203 


moment. He must give way, let his tortured 
back sink beneath the clods of earth. 

And then . . . with his face but an 

inch from the floor of the tunnel ... he 
became aware of a stirring above him; an al¬ 
most imperceptible lightening of the load he 
bore! 

Jack! Good old Jack had returned and was 
frantically busy with shovel and basket. 
Jerry took a long breath, tightened his muscles 
again, and felt a surge of fresh strength 
throughout his body. 

The stirring above went on; became the 
definite sounds of a shovel lifting clods of the 
heavy earth away. The weight was certainly 
growing lighter. Soon he could move one 
shoulder tentatively, testing the amount of dirt 
above him. Blunderbuss’ bark came faintly 
to his ear. The dog must be digging, too— 
Jack would have set him to work. 

“ Ouch! ” 

The sharp edge of the shovel struck his back. 
The dirt came away in smaller quantities. 
Jerry knew what was happening. Jack was 
down in the hole, working with a longer- 


204 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


handled spade. Each shovelful must he 
thrown to the top or loaded into the basket and 
taken up. 

Now strong hands were pulling at him, free¬ 
ing his head from the dirt which blinded him as 
he struggled to stand erect. 

“ Take it easy, old man! Plenty of time, 
plenty of time,” said Jack’s voice, somewhere 
above him. 

At last the moment came when Jerry, 
helped by his friend’s stout-muscled arms, 
clambered out of the hole and stood drinking 
in the clean spring air as though he could never 
have enough of it. His eyes were bloodshot, 
his hair and face plastered with wet clay. His 
shoulders felt as though they had been beaten 
with rods. But he was on top of the earth in¬ 
stead of beneath it. He had a whole wide 
world full of air to breathe. 

He had completely forgotten the fortune in 
gleaming nuggets which lay in the ruined 
tunnel. 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 


It was just at sunset, a month later. The 
boys had returned from a long day’s work at 
the gulch. They had gone back to placer min¬ 
ing in the old diggings after the tunnel caved 
in. Jerry could not be persuaded to resume 
the coyote method of getting gold from the 
earth. It required Jack’s strongest persua¬ 
sions to obtain his aid in recovering the nest of 
nuggets hidden under the avalanche of clay. 
For days his back and shoulders had ached 
with the strain put upon them, a reminder of 
what can happen to those who attempt to defy 
the laws of gravitation. 

“ I’ll take less gold and more air in mine,” 
Jerry declared. 

Not even the sight of the wonderful find 
which Jack finally brought to the surface three 
days after Jerry’s disastrous experience could 
change his opinion of coyote mining. 

At the gulch, Jack had had a run of good 
luck. In less than a week’s time he had come 

205 


206 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


upon two smaller pockets containing nuggets, 
the largest of which was the size of a hazelnut. 
This find would have caused the young miners 
delirious joy had it preceded, instead of fol¬ 
lowed, Jerry’s more spectacular one. 

“As it is,” Jerry said on this particular 
June evening, “ I figure we’ve got between 
fifty and sixty thousand in dust and nuggets. 
With what we got for the wagon and mules, 
it’s not a bad clean-up for two fellows not yet 
nineteen.” 

Jack was busy with a washpan set on a 
stump outside of the shack. He scooped the 
cold water in both hands and flung it on his 
heated face, polishing it vigorously afterwards 
with the towel. 

“What d’you mean—clean-up? Are you 
thinking of quitting? ” 

Jerry sat down on the doorstep and scraped 
the red clay from his heavy boots. 

“ You’ve guessed it, fellow,” he answered 
soberly. “ I’ve had enough of mining for one 
while. No, it isn’t altogether that cave-in of 
mine; I reckon I’m getting homesick for civ¬ 
ilization. It’s been more’n a year since either 



THE GOLD TRAIL 207 

of us has seen a tablecloth or sat in a real chair. 
We’ve got a lot of gold—a heap more than we 
ever expected to get when we came. I say, 
let’s close up the shack, pack our duds and 
what food we’ll need in our saddle-bags, and 
hit the trail for Sacramento and then on to 
San Francisco. There’ll be mail waiting for 
us there, boy! Letters from my folks, letters 
from your uncle. For all either of us 
knows-” 

He did not finish the sentence. Jack knew 
well enough how it would have ended: “For all 
either of us knows, some of those dearest to us 
may be dead! ” 

They sat there on the doorstep for a moment 
in silence, these two young emigrants who had 
left Missouri fourteen months ago. Both were 
thinking of a low brick house, one of the first 
to be built of that material in St. Joseph; of a 
comfortable room furnished with articles 
brought long ago from Kentucky; of a 
woman with a sweet voice and loving eyes; of 
a testy father whose throat had been cleared 
with suspicious frequency during those last 
few days before the young travelers left. 



208 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


This was home—home to Jack Chapman as 
well as to Jerry. That had been decided before 
the train left last year. Jack was to study law 
with Squire Copeland and live in St. Joseph 
until his uncle’s affairs were definitely settled 
and plans made for the future. 

“ It’d be nice to be with people again,” he 
said reflectively. 

“ And to see the pickaninnies dodging in 
and out around the wharfs, nicking a lump of 
sugar out of the barrels in from St. Louis; and 
to see the girls in their Sunday-go-to-meeting 
clothes walking along the streets.” 

“And to sleep in a bed with sheets and real 
pillows! ” 

“And to have some of Mammy’s biscuit and 
apple jelly for supper! ” 

“And to wear something beside cowhide 
boots and miners’ shirts! ” 

“And to see the Eastern papers and maga- 
zmes! 

“And not to have to wash our own dishes! ” 

Jerry sprang up with a shout. “ That 
clinches the matter! Think of getting up from 
the table and strolling away with no concern 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


209 


for the dirty plates and cups and frying-pans! 
Jack, when can we be off? ” 

Jack laughed at his partner’s impetuosity. 
“ Well, not before supper, at any rate. You 
start the fire, and I’ll slice the bacon and grind 
the coffee. And, Jerry, while I think of it, we 
ought to find a hiding-place for this gold. 
Leaving it in the shack, even if it’s hidden 
under that loose hearthstone, isn’t safe. There 
are too many tramps coming by here when 
we’re down at the gulch.” 

“You talk as if we were going right on 
shoveling dirt,” Jerry grumbled. “ I thought 
we’d decided to pull our stakes and get out of 
here.” 

“ Let’s finish that one spur on the north of 
us,” Jack said thoughtfully. “ I’ve got a sort 
of feeling that we’ll strike something there. 
We can do it easy in a couple of days. This 
is Thursday. Suppose we mine till Saturday, 
spend Sunday resting and packing, and start 
out bright and early Monday morning? ” 

Jerry, though he grumbled a little over the 
delay, agreed, and the next day the boys re¬ 
turned to their work with extra energy. After 


210 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


some discussion, they had hidden the stout can¬ 
vas bag which held their gold in a hole Jerry 
dug beneath the doorstep log. 

“ There! ” he said as he smoothed away the 
traces of his work. “ A hundred men could 
step right over our fortune and never know it 
was there.” 

Jack’s premonition about the northern spur 
proved unreliable. The boys took out prac¬ 
tically no gold for the remaining two days of 
the week. At four Saturday afternoon Jerry 
shouldered his pick and shovel disgustedly and 
declared he would return to the shack and 
begin collecting their stores against to-mor¬ 
row’s packing. 

Jack lingered on, loath to relinquish what 
he instinctively felt would be his last effort in 
gold mining. He worked farther away from 
the gulch, turning the clods of earth up in a 
vain hope of finding one last pocket before the 
Blue Jay Mining and Prospecting Company 
went out of business forever. 

It was later than usual when he returned to 
the shack. The sun was sinking rapidly behind 
the mountains and the chill which evening 


THE GOLD TRAIL 211 

brought, even in summer, was beginning to be 
felt. 

“ Hope old Jerry’s got something extra 
good to celebrate the occasion,” he told him¬ 
self. “ Hello! No smoke from the chimney! 
Now what the dickens is that fellow doing? 
I’ll bet he got to packing and forgot all about 
supper.” 

He hastened his footsteps but, even before 
he reached the shack and found it deserted, he 
knew that something was wrong. The log was 
pulled away from the door and the hole which 
held the bag of gold was empty. Jack bent 
down and explored with his hands to make sure 
of it. 

Jerry’s pick and shovel stood against the 
shack just where he had put them when he 
came in from the gulch. Inside, there was 
nothing to indicate what had happened, except 
the absence of a side of bacon and a sack of 
meal from the shelves. Jack’s quick eye noted 
these abstractions. Their larder was so low 
that the articles were easily missed. 

Suddenly Jack remembered that, hours ago, 
he had heard the beat of a horse’s hoofs on the 


212 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


trail above. He had paid no attention to it 
then, thinking it was one of the numerous emi¬ 
grants who passed that way. Now the sound 
took on significance. He hurried out to the 
grassy space in which Rex and Prince were 
hobbled and was not greatly surprised to find 
Rex gone. 

“It can’t be!” he groaned. He sat down 
and took his head in his hands. “ Jerry—old 
Jerry, my partner and friend for over a year— 
to rob me and leave me here alone! ” 

The evidence seemed incontestable. Jerry 
had been the restless one, eager to amass a for¬ 
tune quickly and hurry on to San Francisco. 
The tales of that turbulent city seemed to have 
a fascination for him. He was always talking 
about the gay parties and reckless behavior of 
those young people who constituted the lawless 
element of the new town. 

Jerry—a thief? 

Jack shook his head. The gold was gone; 
Jerry was gone; his horse was gone. Jerry 
had quit work at an unusual hour, an hour un¬ 
known hitherto to the young miners, and had 
come to the shack alone. Soon after, the sound 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


213 


of a galloping horse had been heard on the 
trail above. 

All this was strong circumstantial evidence 
of Jerry's guilt, but Jack had something 
stronger than evidence; he had the deep inner 
conviction of the integrity of his friend’s char¬ 
acter. 

“ Look at the wav he came back and found 

«/ 

me at Rabbit-Hole Springs!” A chipmunk, 
emboldened by the silence within the shack, 
had leaped nimbly to the rude table and sat 
watching the boy out of bright, alert eyes. 
Without seeing him. Jack appeared to address 
him. “ Look at the way he went looking for 
me in the cloudburst down in that canon! I’ve 
lived with him every day for over fourteen 
months, and I’ve never known him to do a 
mean or little thing. He’s got a temper, Jerry 
has, and he’s apt to be impatient and reckless, 
but he’s not a thief. That settles that! ” 

He rose so decisively that the chipmunk, 
panic-stricken, scuttled through the door, chat¬ 
tering his fright and rage against this two- 
legged monster. 

“ That being so,” Jack communed with him- 


214 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


self, “ the next thing is to figure out just what 
happened. Wonder where Blunderbuss is, by 
the way? ” 

He went to the door and called, whistled. 
There was no answer. He journeyed up to 
where the trail crossed the ridge and bent to 
examine the marks in the soft dirt. There 
were numbers of them, but they told no tale. 
Miners were constantly passing along on their 
way down to Sacramento. Sometimes they 
found their way to the shack in the woods; 
more often they went on without knowing that 
the boys lived near by. 

By the time he abandoned his fruitless search 
and returned to the cabin, the sun had set and 
it was growing dark. There was nothing to do 
but wait. He built his fire and set water to 
boiling for coffee. While he was slicing the 
bacon, a sudden thought struck him and he 
went to the box beneath the bed where their 
guns were kept. Jerry’s were both missing, 
and the box itself was open as though some 
one had left it in haste. 

Jack’s anxiety for his friend grew with every 
passing moment. He had evolved a theory, 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


215 


which, it turned out, was pretty close to the 
truth. He believed that Jerry had surprised a 
robber in the act of taking the gold and had 
paused only long enough to arm himself and 
mount Rex before going in pursuit. 

“ If I only knew which way they went! ” 
Jack groaned. “ The kid is so reckless when 
he’s roused, there’s no knowing what he may 
do.” 

He cooked his bacon, tried to force himself 
to eat, but the food choked him. The best he 
could do was to swallow two cups of strong, 
hot coffee. By then he knew that he was com¬ 
mitted to an adventure as reckless and fool¬ 
hardy as ever any Jerry had conceived. He 
was about to start alone, on the down trail, in 
search of both robber and Jerry, at night. 

To realize the danger of this, one must re¬ 
member that, during the summer of 1850, Cal¬ 
ifornia was the abiding-place of more crim¬ 
inals than perhaps have ever been gathered to¬ 
gether in a single State at any other time. 
Every ship that docked at the San Francisco 
wharves brought a fresh addition to their 
ranks. They swarmed up from Mexico; they 


216 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


came by wagon from Great Salt Lake and 
from Oregon. The Land of Gold was also the 
Land of Crime where men killed their neigh¬ 
bors for a handful of gold-dust, and desper- 
- adoes banded together for mutual protection. 

It was the era just preceding the formation 
of the famous Vigilantes: an era which stands 
alone in history for its record of violence and 
crime. 

Jack knew that, should he escape the thievish 
Indians who prowled about the trail, and have 
the good fortune to miss the mountain lions 
which lay along the branches of trees waiting 
to drop upon the back of the unwary traveler, 
he would be an easy prey for the “ Regulars,” 
or “ Hounds,” as they called themselves, who 
were apt to shoot first and inquire into his busi¬ 
ness afterwards. 

He saddled Prince and filled his saddle-bags 
with such food as he could prepare on the trail. 
He buckled on his gun-belt and saw that he 
had plenty of ammunition. Then he put ashes 
on his fire and closed the door of the shack. 
Something seemed to tell him that he should 
never see it again. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


217 


Arrived at the trail, he halted Prince and 
sat wondering which direction to take; north 
or south. The southern way led to Sacra¬ 
mento. It was likely that a robber would have 
friends whom he would wish to join. On the 
other hand, if he was working alone, he would 
make for the mountain fastnesses, at least until 
such search as might be made for him had died 
out. 

“ Prince, can’t you tell which way Rex 
went?” Jack said in an agony of indecision. 
If he took the wrong trail, it meant days, prob¬ 
ably weeks, of fruitless seeking for Jerry. 
“Use some of that horse sense we’re always 
hearing about! ” 

As though he understood, Prince turned his 
head and set off along the southern trail. He 
went with so much decision that Jack won¬ 
dered if it could be possible he sensed the route 
Rex had taken, in some manner unknown to 
man. 

“ Horses do know a lot more than we give 
them credit for,” Jack argued with himself. 
“ Look how they stop in the dark at the edge 
of a precipice! Anyway, I’m like the old lady 


218 THE GOLD TRAIL 

that said she didn’t know but that this time she 
was reduced to trusting in the Lord, because 
there was no other way. I’m reduced to trust¬ 
ing in Prince, and somehow I believe he won’t 
fail me.” 

A yellow moon began to push itself over the 
rim of the hills. This was both an advantage 
and a disadvantage to Jack. It showed him 
the trail with almost daytime distinctness, but 
it also made him perilously visible to any who 
might lurk in the woods near by. He kept his 
right hand on the butt of his Colt and held the 
bridle reins lightly in his left. Prince needed 
no guidance. He trotted confidently along the 
trail, as though sure in his mind of his desti¬ 
nation. 

About six miles from the shack, Jack reined 
in abruptly. Something was lying on the trail; 
something dark and soft; something which 
looked remarkably like Jerry’s wide-brimmed 
hat. 

Jack dismounted. “ It is! Here’s the rattle¬ 
snake skin band Jerry got from an Indian. 
Here’s the big grease-spot that Blunderbuss 
made when he knocked a frying-pan of hot 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


219 


bacon out of Jerry’s hand . . . Blunder¬ 

buss! What a fool I am! I never thought to 
look for his tracks.” 

Down on his knees in the soft dirt went Jack 
and, to his utter delight, found the prints of 
Blunderbuss’s big paws. 

“ We’re on their trail! Prince, old squealer, 
do you hear? We’re on their trail and not far 
behind, if those tracks are any indication. 
There was a lot of wind this afternoon that 
went down with the sun. It would have filled 
up, partly at least, those prints. They were 
made after sundown! ” 

He touched Prince with the spur, and the 
big horse bounded forward. The trail was 
smooth along here, and he could make good 
time. Jack leaned forward in his saddle and 
strained his gaze forward for a fallen tree, a 
loose rock which might bring the galloping 
horse to his knees. 

As the moon rose higher, the forest rustled 
with stirring creatures. Rabbits darted across 
the road in front of Prince. A crash and a 
snarl in a tree near by told that one of the big 
mountain cats had sprung and missed his prey. 


220 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Owls hooted, a grizzly bear shambled inso¬ 
lently ahead and hardly turned as the snorting 
horse fled past. 

“ Go it, Prince! Get up, old fellow! ” The 
exhilaration of that wild ride was getting into 
Jack’s blood. He was riding for Jerry’s 
safety, perhaps for his life. If he could over¬ 
take his fleeing partner before Jerry overtook 
the robber, almost certainly bloodshed would 
be averted. On the other hand, if Jerry came 
within gunshot distance of the man who had 
made off with their gold, the chances were that 
bullets would at once be flying. 

The trail plunged downward, and Prince’s 
feet slid on the green bark of fallen twigs. 
Some one else had ridden along this trail and 
that as wildly, as careless of hanging limbs 
and swaying vines as Jack was himself. The 
trail was marked with evidences of that other 
hasty flight. 

Prince’s feet seemed winged. He ran with 
the fleetness and endurance which was the 
heritage of his Kentucky forebears. Jack 
thrilled with pride in him, even while his anx¬ 
iety grew ever more acute for Jerry. 


THE GOLD TRAIL 221 

At the bottom of the incline there was a 
sharp turn in the trail, and in the middle of the 
road lay something which caused Prince to 
swerve with a suddenness which almost un¬ 
seated his rider. 

Once more Jack dismounted and bent over 
the object in the road. It was Blunderbuss 
who lay there: Blunderbuss with a bullet 
through his faithful heart, his tired feet rest¬ 
ing from their last journey. 

A hot tear fell on the dog’s head. Jack 
straightened up with a whispered vow to 
avenge the death of this good friend who had 
shared their fortunes for more than a year; 
who had gone with his master into this last 
adventure on the trail. 

Back in the saddle he urged Prince on with 
fresh eagerness. The dog’s body was yet 
warm. That meant his slayer was not far 
ahead. 

Clop, clop through the brilliant night went 
Prince’s hoofs. He had settled down to steady 
work now, neck stretched, long legs doubling 
and straightening in the blooded racer’s mar¬ 
velous gait. 


222 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Jack’s hat was gone and his hair streamed 
backward in the wind. They came to a narrow 
stream and Prince vaulted lightly across it; 
to a wider one which he must ford. 

A tree was down across the trail and Jack 
ignored the detour which ran several hundred 
yards to one side. He spoke a single word to 
Prince, gave a lift to the rein and up, up sailed 
the big horse, lightly as a bird, and cleared the 
sprawled branches on the other side. 

“Good old boy!” Jack patted the satin 
neck. “ Keep it up just a little longer and 
we’ll be sure to-” 

He reined Prince in abruptly. Cropping 
the grass by the side of the trail was Rex— 
riderless! 



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 


Years after, Jack could close his eyes and 
remember the sick horror that filled him at the 
sight of Jerry’s riderless horse. He could 
smell the sharp sweetness of the wild flower¬ 
ing beans; feel the coolness of the night breeze 
as it fanned his hot cheek; hear the heaving 
breaths of Prince, halted beside the peaceful 
Rex. 

He could hear something else also: Jerry 
Copeland’s cheerful voice saying: 

“ It’s all right, old fellow! Here I am, safe 
as a church, and here’s our little imitation bur¬ 
glar, too.” 

For a moment Jack reeled in the saddle in 
the reaction of his joy. He passed his hand 
over his eyes as though he could not believe 
what they saw: Jerry seated on a log and 
tightening a leather strap about a man’s ankles. 

“ Nolen! ” 

“ Sure it’s Nolen!” Jack gave a last tug 
to the bridle rein he had employed for his pur- 

223 


224 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


pose, inspected the tautness of its mate about 
Nolen’s arms, and stood up with a weary grin. 
“ Our dear little dimpled darlin’ paid us a visit 
this afternoon and, finding us away, thought 
he’d like something to remember us by. Un¬ 
fortunately for him, the souvenir he chose hap¬ 
pened to be something we rather value our¬ 
selves, so I ambled along the trail after him to 
ask him to give it back.” He patted the canvas 
bag which bulged from his pocket. “ He did, 
after a little friendly tussle on my part.” 

“Are you hurt at all, Jerry? ” 

“ Nary a scratch. Nolen did let off a couple 
of volleys, but his aim is poor on moonlight 
nights. He didn’t hit anything.” 

“ He did, though.” Jack spoke sadly. “ He 
got Blunderbuss.” 

“ W-what do you m-mean? ” stammered 
J erry. 

Jack told him briefly and then looked on 
appalled at the storm of rage and grief that 
shook Jerry. He whipped out his gun and 
leveled it at Nolen. “ Blunderbuss was worth 
a thousand such skunks as you! ” he shouted. 
“ I’m going to drill a hole through your black 


THE GOLD TRAIL 225 

heart so you can’t go around killing any more 
dogs! ” 

Jack’s fingers fell on his wrist, closing 
around it with such pressure that the revolver 
fell to the ground. 

“ Steady, Jerry, old man! We’ve got Nolen 
right where we want him now. Don’t do any¬ 
thing to turn the tables. Killing Nolen won’t 
bring Blunderbuss back, and taking him to 
Sacramento may be the means of rounding up 
the rest of his gang.” 

Nolen, who had listened sneeringly to this 
conversation, paled at the mention of Sacra¬ 
mento. 

“Aw, boys, don’t take me down there,” he 
whined. “ I got enemies in Sacramento that’d 
as soon kill me as look at me.” 

“ So would I,” gritted Jerry. “A whole 
heap rather! ” 

“You got your gold. What more do you 
want? Turn me loose, and I promise not to 
come nigh you again.” 

“ You’re safe in promising that,” Jack told 
him coolly. “ It’s my notion, Mister Hud 
Nolen, that when we get to Sacramento, you’ll 


226 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


be put where you won’t bother anybody for 
a long, long spell.” He turned his back on 
the cringing prisoner. “Now, Jerry, pull 
yourself together. What are we going to do? 
Go back to the shack and pack up what we 
left, or go on from here to Sacramento? ” 

Jerry who was still in a daze of grief over 
his dog made a visible effort to pay attention. 

“ We’ll have to go back, I reckon,” he said 
dully. “ We’ve no food nor blankets.” 

“ I’ve got both on Prince back there. Food 
in the saddle-bags, blankets in a roll.” 

“ Let’s go on then. I won’t draw a free 
breath until I see this cur behind the bars.” 

“ Go on, we will,” said Jack cheerfully. 
“ But not until you’ve had something to eat 
and the horses have had a rest.” 

He led Prince closer to the little clearing 
about the log on which Nolen sat and took 
what he needed from the saddle-bags. Soon a 
small fire was crackling cheerily and Jack 
made coffee and cooked bacon and warmed the 
bread he had brought. Jerry took no part in 
these activities. He sat apart on a fallen tree 
trunk, his elbows on his knees, his face in his 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


227 


hands. Jack whose own heart was heavy for 
the loss of Blunderbuss looked at him with 
pitying sympathy. 

“ Come and eat, boy,” he said presently. 
“ We’ve got a lot of riding to do before we 
reach Sacramento, and you’re going to need 
your strength.” 

Jerry’s common sense told him that this was 
so, and he ate and drank as his friend bade 
him. Nolen looked on enviously, but neither 
of the boys looked his way. 

They rested in the little clearing until dawn, 
keeping the fire alight for protection from wild 
animals, taking turns to stretch out on the blan¬ 
kets which Jack had brought from his saddle¬ 
bags. 

Before they started on the long day’s ride. 
Jack prepared an ample breakfast, and this 
time Nolen was allowed to partake of the meal, 
his arms temporarily freed for the purpose. 

They made the journey to Sacramento in 
this fashion; resting themselves and the horses 
at night, traveling through the day. Nolen’s 
legs were tied under his horse and his wrists 
fastened to the pummel of his saddle. They 


228 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


passed several trading-posts where they re¬ 
plenished their supplies and where the sight of 
their prisoner awakened but little curiosity. 
Such sights were too common to stir the 
loungers from their comfortable seats in the 
shade of the little buildings. 

The first place visited by the trio—and let 
it here be recorded that the visit was far from 
being voluntary on the part of one of them— 
was the sheriff’s office, when they reached 
Sacramento. There, as Jack had foretold, 
Nolen was welcomed warmly. The boys’ ac¬ 
count of the man’s attempts upon their own 
lives, and robbery of their gold was hardly 
listened to, so eager was the sheriff to clap 
Nolen into jail, there to await California’s jus¬ 
tice. 

“ It don’t matter a mite what he done before 
he come down here,” the sheriff remarked. 
“We got enough evidence against him to con¬ 
vict him four times over on what he done here. 
The only thing that’s bothering me is how 
we’re going to be able to hang him enough 
times to satisfy the demands of justice.” 

Leaving the Sacramento courts to solve that 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


229 


knotty problem, the boys pushed on toward 
San Francisco. They had received in Sacra¬ 
mento, not only the mail for which they longed, 
but news which determined them to reach San 
Francisco with all possible speed. 

“Your name Chapman, you say?” asked 
the postmaster. “ There was a fellow by that 
name a while back inquiring if anything had 
been heard of two young chaps about your age 
and size. Edward Chapman, his name was, 
and he sure wanted bad to find you two.” 

“ My uncle! ” gasped Jack. “ But he’s in 
England.” 

“ He ain’t no such a thing.” The postmaster 
spoke with acerbity. “ He’s in ’Frisco right 
now, onless he decided to push up into the 
mountains in search of you.” 

“ How long ago was he here? ” 

“ Lemme see—a couple of weeks ago, I 
cal’late. He give me an address to write to 
him in case I heard anything of you.” He 
handed over a slip of paper on which the elder 
Chapman’s name and a street number were 
written in a familiar hand. 

“It’s Uncle Edward, all right!” Jack’s 



230 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


eyes were shining. “ I didn’t know how bad 
I did want to see him till I found he was so 
near. Jerry, do you want to hang around this 
place or can we-” 

“ Sure, old man, we’ll push right ahead,” 
Jerry agreed. “ I’m mighty anxious to see 
’Frisco, you know, and I won’t mind meeting 
Mr. Chapman again, either! I wonder if he 
crossed the plains this spring? ” 

“ No,” said the well-informed postmaster. 
“ He come on a sailing ship from New York 
by way of New Orleans. That’s the stylish 
way of gittin’ to Californy, though they do say, 
when the vessel’s short-handed, they make the 
passengers lend a hand with the ship’s work. 
And you can believe most of ’em are short- 
handed, so that there’ll be more room for pas¬ 
sengers at a thousand dollars a head! ” 

The boys lingered in the town only long 
enough to restock their saddle-bags with food 
and to treat themselves to one good meal at an 
eating-house. Then they took the trail once 
more, bound this time for the most picturesque, 
turbulent, and lawless city in America—“ bois¬ 
terous San Francisco.” 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


One more adventure—the greatest—awaited 
Jack Chapman and his partner before their 
California days were over. 

They came into the city of mushroom 
growth one Sunday morning: two tall, bronzed 
lads whose straight backs and clear young 
eyes were a contrast to the groups of unshaven 
miners who lounged in front of flimsy frame 
structures. 

On ropes stretched from house to house or, 
in some cases, from tent to tent fluttered red 
shirts, handkerchiefs, socks, and heavy jeans 
trousers. Sunday was wash-day in the mining 
towns. Slatternly women gossiped idly, while 
men, still groggy from their Saturday night 
debauch, stumbled out into the sunshine. 

“ What a place! ” said Jerry. Then he ex¬ 
citedly called Jack’s attention to a group of 
Kanakas, somewhat sketchily clad even for 
June, and walking sedately along the planks 
which served as sidewalks. “And I’ve seen 

231 




232 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


Chinamen and Mexicans. I suppose those 
turbaned fellows are Moors. Looks like the 
gathering-place of the nations of the earth, 
doesn’t it? ” 

“And look at the different styles of dress,” 
Jack returned. “ Top hats, frock coats, dia¬ 
monds as big as your thumbs, alongside of 
cowhide boots and flannel shirts! ” 

At the corner of Clay and Kearny Streets 
the boys reined in their horses to laugh at a 
sign posted conspicuously: 

“ THIS STREET IS IMPASSABLE. 
NOT EVEN JACKASSABLE.” 

“ Looks mighty dusty, but I reckon it isn’t 
that bad,” Jerry commented but, even as they 
stood looking, an intrepid man riding a mule 
came down the sea of litter, dust, and garbage 
that passed for a street. Immediately, both 
mule and rider were obscured by the cloud of 
dirt which rose in dense volume. The on¬ 
lookers withdrew, coughing and wiping their 
eyes. 

“ Say, I wouldn’t have believed it, if I hadn’t 
seen it. Jack, there were bushels of tea in that 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


233 


street, and bales of cotton and boxes of to¬ 
bacco, all soaked with water. What do you 
suppose it means? ” 

“ Don’t know,” said Jack, clearing the last 
particles of dust from his throat. 

Later the boys learned that it was a common 
practice among San Francisco merchants to 
dump their wares into the streets unless they 
succeeded in obtaining for them the exorbitant 

prices which prevailed, and many a cargo of 

» 

badly needed articles went into the bay before 
the profiteers succeeded in educating the 
miners to their highwaymen prices. 

“ Let’s find your uncle and then go some¬ 
where and eat,” proposed Jerry. “ I saw a 
place back there that said ‘ Mother Moore’s Pie 
House.’ I don’t mind telling you, old timer, 
I could tuck away half a dozen nice fat, home¬ 
made pies and never miss the space they’d 
occupy.” 

They made their way through streets piled 
almost to the middle with boxes, barrels, and 
bales of goods. Space of any kind was at a 
premium in San Francisco, and it was cheaper 
to sustain the loss of part of one’s goods than 


234 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


to take on additional room. A cellar, twelve 
feet square and six feet deep, the boys learned, 
rented as a law office at two hundred and fifty 
dollars a month. A canvas tent, occupied by 
• gamblers who called it the El Dorado, brought 
forty thousand a year. 

“ I wouldn’t have missed seeing this place 
for anything,” Jerry remarked solemnly, as 
they swerved their horses to avoid trampling 
a wild-eyed woman armed with a butcher knife 
who was furiously pursuing a burly sailor. 

Down the street came the sound of music, a 
fiddle being played with no little skill and 
voices upraised in song. Just as the boys came 
opposite a cheap frame building from which 
the music issued, a terrific outburst of firing 
and a general hullabaloo broke out. 

Jack seized his friend’s bridle and drew both 
horses into the comparative shelter of a stable 
across the street. 

“ I’ve got an idea things are going to be 
happening here in about a minute,” he said 
quietly. 

He was right. The door to the building 
opened, and out poured a stream of frenzied 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


235 


men. Behind them stood a huge figure in 
undershirt and linen trousers. In each hand 
he held a heavy black six-barreled gun, known 
as an “Allen’s pepper-box.” The guns were 
smoking and, as he came out into the open, he 
sent forth a second volley of shots, though 
Jerry observed that he aimed well above the 
heads of the crowd. 

“ You git out and stay out,” he shouted. 
“ I keep a re-fined and respectable gambling 
place, I do! Monte, faro, lansquenet, roulette, 
all fours—you kin have yore choice, gents, but 
you got to be re-fined. I got the good name 
of this yere hall to consider. Gun-fanners, 
grub-rustlers, hoss-thieves, and claim-jumpers 
take notice and keep fur away from Gentle¬ 
man Jerry’s Place! ” 

“ Your namesake, old man,” Jack said with 
a grin. “ Nice, peaceable sort of chap, isn’t 
he, doing his best to elevate the tone of ’Frisco 
sassiety! The street seems fairly clear now. 
Suppose we mosey on.” 

The address given them by the Sacramento 
postmaster proved to be a boarding-house, and 
here disappointment awaited them. The pro- 


236 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


prietor, a neat New England woman who con¬ 
ducted her affairs in this lawless town as 
quietly as though she were in her native vil¬ 
lage, told them that Edward Chapman had 
left San Francisco only two days before. 

“ You’re his nephew, aren’t you? ” she asked 
Jack. “ Well, he heard you were prospecting 
on Feather River and he took a horse and 
started for there. Too had you’ve missed each 
other.” 

Jack was greatly disappointed. “ Let’s turn 
right around and see if we can’t overtake him,” 
he proposed, but Jerry had a different plan. 

“We might miss him again. He’ll have to 
go through Sacramento and he’ll be sure to 
stop for mail. The postmaster will tell him 
we’re here and that he gave us this address. 
The thing for us to do is to stop this game of 
hide-and-seek right now. If we can get a room 
here ”—he looked inquiringly at the woman— 
“ we’d better stay here and wait for your uncle 
to come back.” 

She nodded. “ I can give you a room, such 
as it is. It’s not big enough to swing a cat 
without his tail touching the walls, but it’s 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


237 


clean, which is more than can he said for most 
of the places in this Godless town.” She closed 
her lips with a click. It was plain that San 
Francisco found no favor in her eyes. 

“ How about dinner? ” Jerry asked eagerly. 

“ Dinner is over for to-day. You’ll have to 
go down-town for it. I’ve let my Chinaman 
off for the afternoon and I don’t start a fresh 
fire on Sunday for any one.” 

Somewhat abashed, the boys agreed to get 
their meal down-town and return for the cold 
supper which she promised to serve at six. 
This suited Jerry exactly. He was fascinated 
by the town, and he yearned to sample Mother 
Moore’s home-made pies. 

They turned their horses’ heads toward the 
direction from which they had come and soon 
halted before Mother Moore’s. Jack chuckled 
over his partner’s look of dismay as he took in 
his surroundings. “ Mother Moore ” proved 
to be a fat and greasy Mexican whose knowl¬ 
edge of English seemed to be limited to “ Cinco 
pesos —five dollar, senor!” 

“ Five dollars? ” Jerry said, startled. “ Say, 
we don’t want all your pies, Mrs. Moore, if 


238 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


that’s your name. We just want a couple or 
maybe three.” 

She nodded understandingly; pushed for¬ 
ward one fly-specked, pallid specimen of 
pastry and repeated: “ Cinco pesos! 33 

“ Jack, I believe on my soul she means to 
charge us five dollars for one pie,” Jerry said 
solemnly. 

“ Sure she does,” said a burly miner consum¬ 
ing a pie of his own at the unspeakably dirty 
counter. “ That’s the regular price.” 

“Why, say . . . why, say-” Jerry 

stuttered. “ Where I come from, five dollars 
would buy up all the pies this room would 
hold.” 

The Mexican woman gave utterance to a 
sentence in liquid Spanish: 

“ Mas sabe el loco en su casa, que el cuerda 
en la ajena, senor! 33 

It was spoken with such soft amiability that 
the boys were not prepared for the roar of 
laughter which came from the miner. 

“ What did she say? ” inquired Jack. 

“ I ain’t no great shakes of an interpreter, 
but the sense of it is that a fool—a loco, 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


239 


y’know—in his own house knows a heap more 
than a wise man does away from home.” 

Jerry flushed and slapped down ten dollars 
for two pies, but his appetite for pastry seemed 
to have been affected by the little exchange of 
courtesies, and he made no attempt to finish 
his own purchase. 

“ What kind of a town is this, anyhow? ” he 
burst forth when they had left Mother 
Moore’s. “ The very sight of those pies made 
me gag. Don’t you suppose there is anywhere 
we can get a decent meal without paying for 
the building as well? ” 

“ Here’s a Chinese eating-place,” Jack sug¬ 
gested rather doubtfully. “ It looks clean, 
anyway. Let’s try it.” 

They were hungry enough to eat any sort 
of food by now, so they went in where a smil¬ 
ing Oriental greeted them with a low bow and 
placed hot and well-cooked food before them. 
Jerry’s previous experience had somewhat pre¬ 
pared him for the price they had to pay, hut at 
least the food was clean and good. 

“ How do folks live here unless they’re mil¬ 
lionaires? ” he wondered. 


240 THE GOLD TRAIL 

“ I guess most of them are millionaires, or 
mighty close to it,” Jack answered. “ That 
fellow back in the pie store said carpenters get 
sixteen dollars a day and other laborers ac¬ 
cordingly. I guess ’Frisco is mostly made up 
of miners who blow in for a few days’ good 
time and don’t care what they spend. All I 
can say is, I hope Uncle Edward will come 
along pretty soon or you and I will have to go 
back and mine some more gold to pay our 
board bill! ” 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 


Red dawn—and a city in flames! 

The boys had been awakened shortly after 
midnight by their landlady hammering at the 
door. 

“ Get up, boys, and dress. The city’s afire 
again! ” 

“Again?” Jack stumbled sleepily out into 
the passage. 

“ Yes. Those rascally Hounds, or Regu¬ 
lars, or whatever they call themselves this time, 
have already burnt it four times. This makes 
the fifth. Hurry now and get your horses out 
of the stable before they’re smothered.” 

She moved composedly away and the boys 
heard her calm voice directing her Chinese cook 
to pack such articles as could be carried out of 
the threatened section. 

“ Acts like it’s a regular and entirely-to-be- 
expected procedure,” Jerry grinned as he 
pulled on his boots. “ Say, Jack, the more I 
see of this town the less I think I want to set¬ 
tle down in it.” 


241 


242 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“ Same here,” said Jack tersely. 

They volunteered their services to their land¬ 
lady, but that competent person waved them 
away. 

“ I’ve been through this before, and I know 
exactly what to do. I’m only thankful the fires 
were started at the other end of the street in¬ 
stead of at this. Last time, it broke out next 
door and I couldn’t save a thing. If you two 
want to do anything, you can tether your 
horses upon the hill, out o’ range of fire, and 
come down and help those poor folks along 
Kearny Street. They never seem to learn 
anything from experience. I expect they’ll be 
just as flustered and upset as though they’d 
never smelled smoke before.” 

Half an hour later Jack and Jerry were 
busy carrying arm-loads of household goods 
from a house in what was known as Happy 
Valley. Though there were but five rooms, 
they seemed to shelter an endless number of 
people. Jerry had already helped to safety a 
crippled old man, a bedridden woman, and 
two small children. The father of the family 
seemed entirely bewildered, and stood cursing 


THE GOLD TRAIL 243 

steadily and making no attempt to help in the 
removal. 

“ It’s them thar Houn’s,” he said, with a 
string of oaths. “ I knowed when they broke 
into the Sacramento jail and took out the 
leader, there’d be trouble.” 

Jack paused in his task. 

“ Took out the leader, you say? Do you 
happen to know what his name is? ” 

“ He’s got more names than a chicken has 
feathers,” was the answer. “ Nolen’s the mon- 
niker we know him by in these parts. If we 
ketch him agin, there won’t be no waitin’ for 
the wheels of the law to turn. If that sheriff 
in Sacramento had done right, Nolen and his 
gang would all be dancin’ on air by now.” 

Nolen! Jack communicated the fact of his 
escape to Jerry. 

“ Looks like we’ll be mixed up with Nolen 
to the end of our California stay,” Jerry com¬ 
mented. “ I had a feeling back in Sacramento 
that that sheriff was a bit too enthusiastic about 
his capture. It’s dollars to doughnuts he’s one 
of Nolen’s own gang and let him loose on the 
sly.” 


244 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


All morning the boys toiled, helping the 
women and children out of the burning area, 
giving the merchants a hand with the removal 
of their goods so far as it was possible, but in¬ 
terested in spite of themselves in the sights and 
sounds about them. 

One little painted girl, frail and small as a 
child, tugged courageously at the great bulk of 
a man who lay in a drunken slumber on the 
floor of a barroom. 

“ He’s my dad,” she explained, panting. 
“ He ain’t much account, but he’s my dad just 
the same, and I ain’t a-goin’ to have him 
burned up.” 

Under her direction the boys carried the sod¬ 
den heap of manhood to a place where the 
flames could not reach him. As they put him 
down, he roused somewhat and, seeing his 
daughter’s anxious face bent above him, he 
lifted his fist and struck her a cruel blow. 

Jerry immediately jerked the man to his 
feet, only to knock him flat to the earth again. 

“ Hey, whashyu doin’ ? ” his victim mum¬ 
bled. 

“ I’ve saved you from the fire and now I’m 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


245 


going to give you the father and mother of a 
licking,” said Jerry. 

Jack looked on with amusement while Jerry 
alternately hauled the fellow upright and 
knocked him down again, but presently he in¬ 
terfered. 

“ You’re wasting your strength, Jerry. 
We’re needed down in the town. Come on! ” 

Jerry gave a last satisfying smack to the 
bloated face in front of him, then turned and 
followed Jack. 

Throughout the confusion and shouting of 
that day, guns had barked at ever-increasing 
intervals. Now the rumor spread that the 
“ Hounds ” were riding through the distracted 
citizens, taking their money at the point of a 
gun, shooting those who resisted. On their 
way down into the valley, the boys came upon 
a man who sat holding his head from which 
blood ran from a scalp wound. 

“ Hit was one of them damned Hounds,” 
he said, feebly, as the boys stopped to give him 
assistance. “ They’re out in full cry with the 
leader of the pack eggin’ ’em on. I didn’t 
hand over my sack o’ dust quick enough to 


246 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


suit ’em, an’ they gimme this little souvenir to 
remember ’em by. ’Tain’t mortal,” he said, 
as Jack’s deft fingers explored. “ Some cold 
water and a rag to tie it up with will fix it.” 

They helped him back up the hill and then 
resumed their journey into the burning re¬ 
gions. It was too late to enter the business 
section or even to save the flimsy wooden and 
canvas structures which made up the resi¬ 
dential section. All they could do was to help 
those belated citizens who were making their 
way up the slopes and attenrpting to carry a 
pitiful remnant of their possessions to the 
safety of the higher ground. 

It was on one of these expeditions that a 
group of horsemen swept down the smoke- 
filled street, shouting and firing their Colts 
like madmen. Jerry recognized in the fore¬ 
most rider the hated features of Hud Nolen. 

“ By thunder, I’m going to get him if it’s 
the last thing I do!” he yelled, stepping out 
into the road. 

Jack was after him in a flash. “ For the 
Lord’s sake, boy, are you crazy? ” he said. 
“ They’re five to our two, and killin’ mad. Get 


THE GOLD TRAIL 247 

back here before you get a bullet through your 
brain.” 

His warning came too late. Jerry’s gun had 
spoken and Nolen’s horse stumbled and fell to 
its knees, pitching its rider head first into the 
ashes and dirt of the road. Instantly the other 
outlaws halted and leveled their guns at the 
boys. Jack realized despairingly that they had 
little or no chance against that fusillade. 

“Drop down!” he yelled to Jerry and 
pulled the other with him to the ground as 
bullets whined above their heads. 

Clouds of dust and ashes rose from the mill¬ 
ing feet of the horses and in that semi-obscu¬ 
rity, Jack saw their only chance of safety. He 
thrashed his arms about to increase the rising 
dirt, at the same time wriggling backward and 
muttering to Jerry to follow. 

Nolen was in the road also, and this fact 
restrained the robbers from firing a second vol¬ 
ley until the air cleared. Smoke belched sud¬ 
denly from a small building across the street. 
It was the only one which was made of brick 
and it had hitherto withstood the flames of the 
neighboring stores. 


248 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“ It’s the ammunition shop! ” yelled one of 
the riders, and set his horse at a gallop down 
the street. Instantly the other three followed, 
leaving Nolen almost hidden from sight in the 
rain of fine ashes which followed their de¬ 
parture. But though he could neither see nor 
be seen, he could shoot, and his bullets were 
coming unpleasantly close to the boys who, 
by now, were on their feet and running swiftly 
from the neighborhood of the brick building. 

In the same moment, two things happened: 
there was an explosion within the ammunition 
shop which filled the air with flying bricks, 
heavy metal containers, and bits of wood and 
stone; and Jerry felt a stinging sensation in 
his shoulder and knew that he was hit. 

Hours later, it seemed to him, he was sitting 
on the grassy slope of a hill with Jack bandag¬ 
ing his wound and giving him water to drink 
from a tin cup a tall man handed him. 

The stranger’s clothing was torn and his face 
was black with grime and smoke, but there was 
something familiar about him that caught 
Jerry’s eyes. 

“ What!” he murmured surprisedly, touch- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


249 


ing his head and finding it, too, bandaged. “ I 
must have been clear knocked out! I haven’t 
the least idea how I got up here and I’d stake 
my word that’s your Uncle Edward, Jack! ” 

“ Sure it is, old man,” came the soothing 
answer. “You and a brick collided down 
there just after you got drilled through the 
shoulder. That’s why you don’t remember 
being carried up here. And Uncle Edward 
was here—looking for us. He got in last night 
and didn’t want to wake us. Then the fire 
broke out and he’s been nearly crazy, thinking 
we might have been caught in it.” 

“How do you feel, my boy?” Mr. Chap¬ 
man’s deep, pleasant voice inquired. “We 
took the bullet out while vou were still uncon- 
scious, and the wound has been nicely dressed. 
The doctor just left you. He has a good 
many folks to attend to. Head pretty sore? ” 
Jerry moved it experimentally. “ Well, I 
know I ran into something all right,” he said 
with a grin. “Say, what about all this, Jack? 
You and your uncle and I meeting on a hill¬ 
side by a burned-up town in California, when 
we last saw each other in St. Joseph? ” 



250 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“ I imagine it’s entirely typical of this wild 
land,” Mr. Chapman said. “ Now, boys, 
there’s a ship sailing at daybreak. I think I 
can get passage on it for us three—if I’m will¬ 
ing to pay the price, and of course I am. Have 
you both had enough of California and gold 
mining? ” 

“ I have,” his nephew said decisively. 
“ When that brick building blew to thundera- 
tion and Jerry pitched headlong into the mess 
in that street, I’d have given every nugget we 
ever found to be back in the shack or even out 
on the trail! ” 

“ Nuggets? Then you boys actually did 
find gold? ” 

For answer Jack took the well-filled buck¬ 
skin sack from his shirt where it was securely 
fastened and handed it to his uncle. 

“ Heft that! ” he said proudly. “ Not bad 
for two young emigrants, is it? And there’s 
plenty more where that came from, if we’d 
been willing to stay and take it out. What 
say, Jerry? Want to go back? ” 

“Not much!” The invalid raised himself 
painfully and pointed down into the now 


THE GOLD TRAIL 251 

smouldering town below. “ I’ve got just one 
job left in California and then I’m more than 
willing to go home.” 

“ What’s that? Want some more of Mother 
Moore’s home-made pies? ” 

“ No.” Jerry’s lips tightened to a grim 
line. “ I want to get Hud Nolen and put him 
where he won’t shoot any more fellows in a 
hurry! ” 

“ You’re out of luck, old timer,” his partner 
said cheerfully. “ There isn’t enough of Nolen 
left to hold a funeral over. He was right in 
front of that ammunition shop, you know. 
Everybody is saying it was he and his gang 
who started this fire. Guess it’s a sort of 
poetic justice that he met his death in it.” 

“ Even if he was your brother-in-law,” 
Jerry began, looking at Mr. Chapman, “ I 
must say-” 

“ Brother-in-law, your grandmother! ” that 
gentleman said energetically. “ I don’t know 
what you boys were thinking about to believe 
that cock-and-bull story. Jack, you know 
your aunt married an Englishman. Was there 
anything English about Nolen’s speech? He 



252 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


was a coachman my father employed back in 
Boston before my sister married. He was dis¬ 
charged for stealing. Later, I have reason to 
believe, he went to England as a stowaway 
and somehow or other learned of my brother- 
in-law’s death. Cecil Bradford was a good- 
for-naught, the Lord knows, but he wasn’t a 
thief and a murderer,” Mr. Chapman finished. 

The boys digested this in silence, and the 
elder Chapman continued: 

“ Boys, I had intended, if I found you, to 
go hack home with you. But since I have seen 
the misrule in this city, I’d like mightily to stay 
and establish a law office. There is bound to 
be a turning of the tide soon, and then honest 
men who are determined to uphold the law will 
he needed. You’ve proved yourselves amply 
able to take care of yourselves. What would 
you think of sailing to-morrow without me? ” 

Jack was disappointed, but he saw that his 
uncle’s heart was set on the difficult but splen¬ 
did task of bringing order to the distressed 
city on the bay. So he merely nodded in 
silence. 

“ There’s talk of a committee of citizens be- 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


253 


ing formed right now for the protection of the 
better element. I can be of help to them 
immediately. Now, the next thing is to get a 
bed for Jerry as soon as possible. I wonder 
where we can find a house that will take us 
in?” 

% 

“ House? ” Jerry was swaying weakly on 
his feet, but he spoke with healthy scorn. 
“ We’ve got our blankets behind our saddles, 
Mr. Chapman. We’ll pick out a nice soft spot 
on the hill and use it for a bed. I reckon you 
forget Jack and I are emigrants? ” 

“ I suppose I do. Anyway, I think a young 
man with a hole in his shoulder and a lump on 
his head is entitled to a bedframe and a mat¬ 
tress, if such a thing is to be found.” 

A short search quickly convinced him that it 
was not. The few houses and tents which re¬ 
mained for the town were being used to shelter 
the women and children and those who had 
been hurt in the fire. 

In the meantime, Jack had gone for the 
horses and mounted Jerry on Rex. With 
Prince for his own mount and his uncle riding 
the horse he had bought in Sacramento, the 


254 THE GOLD TRAIL 

three rode out a little from the general en¬ 
campment. 

There still remained in the boys’ saddle-bags 
coffee, bacon, and beans. It was familiar work 
to Jack to prepare the meal, and he enjoyed 
displaying his deftness to his uncle. 

Night had fallen on the hillside—the boys’ 
last night in California. Jerry lay on his 
blanket, looking up at the stars. His shoulder 
smarted and his head ached, but despite these 
physical ills, his heart was filled with quiet hap¬ 
piness. 

He had been an emigrant to California, 
braving the dangers of the long trek across the 
plains. He had escaped an Indian attack, been 
caught in a cloudburst, mined gold and re¬ 
covered it from a robber, been buried in a 
cave-in, engaged in a battle of bullets with a 
desperado. He had eaten meals which he had 
cooked from their own stores, and he had eaten 
meals for which he paid twenty dollars in gold 
of his own digging. He had lost a canine 
friend, but proved a human one and had 
“ bound him to his soul with hoops of steel.” 
He had spent nights where the only sounds 



THE GOLD TRAIL 255 

beside his own voice and Jack’s had been the 
wind sighing in the trees and the snarl of a 
mountain lion along the trail; and he had spent 
other nights, the silence of which was shattered 
by drunken shouts and the crack of death¬ 
dealing bullets. 

Into fifteen short months he had crowded 
more adventures than come in a lifetime to 
most men. 

And to-morrow there would be the blue sea 
and the blue sky and the wind bellying the 
sails for home. 

“I’m bringing Jack home for supper, 
Mother,” he murmured. He was beginning 
to be drowsy and a little feverish. “ Let’s 
have beat’ biscuit and fried chicken and syl¬ 
labub and cream. Nothing’s too good for old 
Jack. Wear your wine-colored silk and your 
cameo pin. And a white tablecloth and the 
silver caster—and sheets on the bed—black 
Jason and his fiddle to play-” 

Farther down the hillside came the sound of 
music: some courageous soul singing the emi¬ 
grant song. Jerry wove it into the fabric of 
his dream. 



256 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


“ My name it is Joe Bowers, 

I have a brother Ike: 

I come from oP Missouri— 

Came all th’ way from Pike.” 

Jerry cuddled his cheek in his hand and 
smiled. 

“Of course I come from Missouri,” he mur¬ 
mured. “ Going right back there, too ! ” 


THE END 














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